Out Of Touch, Out Of Touch, Out Of Time!
by I-am-the-Peel
Summary: Based on Killbane ending of SRTT. After getting rid of the Syndicate and STAG, and turning Steelport into a city state, the Boss has regained the Saints power, however he is massively depressed. He has lost three of his best friends in the course of six months, all to the same people. But what happens when Kinzie presents to him the opportunity to go back and change everything? R
1. Chapter 1 The Depression

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* * *

_I started out with nothin'... just a kid from the streets, with nothin' to lose. Then I met Julius, and everything changed. Once I joined the 3rd Street Saints, everything started going my way. I'd run some jobs, get paid, and lady luck was on my side. But something happened, everything changed…Again. I found myself fucked in a boat explosion and I fell asleep for five years. When I woke up, I reunited my crew and went back on the mission, and I retook Stilwater for myself._

_Then I started getting sloppy, forgot what life as a gangbanger was, then I lost a lot because of it. I used to market clothes, sell coffee mugs and even advertised an energy drink for fuck's sake…I went on to avenge what I lost, met a lotta more people, and upped my game in this world. Before I knew it, I was the capo of an international crime __organisation__._

_Now I'm sitting on my podium, looking back at everything that has happened, and now, I'm full of regrets. There's so much shit that I could have done better, so many people I could have saved, and so many others that I could have killed sooner…But now, maybe…_

_Maybe now, I have a chance…Maybe now, I have the time..._

* * *

_"Boss? Boss!?"_

_"I'm here Kinzie…"_

_"Good, it's ready."_

_"…About time…"_

It's been a while since I last heard from anyone in the crew, well actually it's been a while since I've actually heard from anyone for that shit. After what happened with the statue, and Cyrus and Killbane, I can't think straight anymore…I've put Pierce in charge of running the city, making sure that everything stays ok, and since I haven't heard anything from him, he must be doing a damn good job. Oleg, Angel, I haven't seen them all for about a month; just kept myself in the penthouse, calling for saints to get me food and alcohol to stay alive…I can't face the outside world again; I've become a sellout. Over the course of six months in Steelport, I let three of my strongest gang members, and deepest friends, die for me…No, die for us all. Johnny…Shaundi…Viola, they're all dead and I could have done something; might have made shit worse or made life better, but I still could have fucking done something…At least now, I could wake up in the morning and know that I at least tried, that I actually proved to the world that I gave a damn 'bout my friends, but now, most of the world just looks at me like a sellout.

I took a shower and found some clean clothes; I barely ever moved from those chairs or bothered to look after myself; before today, what was the point? It would have just been a reminder about what has happened…I put some clean clothes on and managed to make myself look normal; well, normalish, I looked like my old self but inside, I was constantly stabbing myself. I was doing anything, to keep a reminder of what happened, what they did, what I did…

So that I'd never forget them, not now, not ever…

I looked at the phone on the table; had a lot of dust on it but it still somehow worked…I looked at the contacts list and found all my friends on it, well, the friends that were still alive…Every time I got around to deleting Johnny's, Shaundi's and Viola's numbers, I'd just throw the phone down in disgust...Why the fuck should I wipe them off my phone, as if they're just a memory I want to fucking forget? I saw Pierce's number at the top and began ringing him; Pierce may have been a pussy every now and then but I knew him well, I trusted him well, and I could depend on him well…

_"Boss? Shit man, how are you? What's 'appening man?"_

_"Pierce…Kinzie's done it…It's finally done…"_

_"You're sure? She ain't just getting your hopes up?"_

_"More sure than anything…"_

_"Alright man…I'll come and get you from the crib-"_

_"I may not get out much Pierce, but I still remember where Kinzie's warehouse is…I'll see you there-"_

_"Boss…A lot has changed in Steelport over the past month…You won't know your way around these streets anymore…I'll come and pick you up."_

_'A lot has changed'_? Fucking seriously? I don't like being babysitted, but I guess I have no choice. Within ten minutes, I saw Pierce pull up outside in a purple limousine and I went out to greet him; he looked really different, I guess his position as mayor of Steelport has really gotten to him, or at least, the power. He dressed in his old white suit but had a purple shirt with a black tie, and had replaced his old hat with a white fedora; he may be the mayor but he is still a Saint, and he still kept his taste in the gang's colours…We shook hands then hugged each other since it's been so long, and got into the limo, and I looked out through the windows towards Steelport; it looked like both Los Angeles and Las Vegas somehow had a child. Every single street had a small casino, with the purple, white and gold decals all over the seemingly normal urban houses, and skyscraper after skyscraper after skyscraper. I couldn't believe what I was seeing at first until I looked out towards the other islands, and saw lots of smoke rising towards the sky. Then I realised something; Pierce massively improved all of the industries in the city.

_"You like what's been done with Steelport?"_

_"You've put a lot of emphasis on the name Pierce…"_

_"With Steelport a city-state, we've either had to beg or steal from other countries for food which didn't work out originally…Then we just, decided to make everything ourselves-"_

_"And in doing so, you've put God knows how many factories and shit across Steelport, but you've also turned the Downtown district into an amusement park…It's as if Las Vegas had a one-night stand with Los Angeles, and had an unwanted child-"_

_"-You don't like it?"_

_"It doesn't look like a city Pierce…It looks tacky…Looks like what Ultor did to Saints Row…"_

Pierce was silent after I told him that; he must have been hurt inside after my criticism but he had to take it; he needed to learn from it. Block after block, streetcorner after streetcorner, all I saw were flashy lights from the rooftops, pimps and hos on the corners all doing as they pleased and cops running around in purple police uniforms, dancing and not giving a damn at all. Sure when I saw a robbery taking place, the cops did something, but it didn't feel the same…It felt…Out of touch.

The drive was taking too long, it was making me think too much. I sat whilst Pierce opened a bottle of wine and started drinking early, looking out of the window and thinking about everything that had happened, everything that I lost…

* * *

_"Boss! You need to bail!"_

_"No! Not without you! We've all got to stick together-No one gets left behind!"_

_"But...I can take 'em…"_

_"Johnny…You don't have to-"_

_"-Go! I got this!"_

_"Johnny! We're about to jump!"_

_"Right on…I'll see you in Stil-"_

_….._

_…._

_"…Johnny?"_

His face, his face when I last saw him…It was bright and full of delight; he had spent far too long before getting to fight again, like really fight again, against another bunch of assholes who were trying to prove themselves. Gat was my right hand, the one man I could trust with my life…When I was in my coma, he tried to take care of everything himself; he tried to round up all the remaining saints, led them into hiding, tried to keep hold of all the money that they had. But man by man, they were all killed or busted; Johnny couldn't do everything on his own, he could try, but he couldn't…

That's what killed him in the end…

* * *

_"So what do we do now?"_

_"What's next is you go back to Stilwater…This is going to get messy, and you don't need to get involved..."_

_"What? No! This is my fight too! I'm doing this for Johnny!"_

_"Gimme the Goddamn gun Pierce!"_

_"Boss, with Johnny gone, we need a new right hand man!"_

_"Pierce…It's too soon to have another right hand man; Johnny was the best at that…But that doesn't mean we can't have a right hand woman!"_

_"Really? You mean it!? You think I'm ready for it?"_

_"I don't think Johnny would have wanted anyone else, Shaundi…It's your time now!"_

_"What he did to Johnny's funeral…That's over the fucking limit!"_

Shaundi…God I was too harsh on that girl; I remember when I first recruited her…She was young, sometimes shy and sometimes outgoing depending whether she was high or drunk or whatever, and strived to prove herself. She had her own ways of getting information on other gangs, and getting shit done; I never liked it and always wanted her to work like Pierce or Carlos, but her ways were more...Effective. She always knew how to take advantage of the unloved bitches that she needed to pull, all she needed was a sombrero and some tequila...After she got knocked out by Veteran Child, I lost faith in her which really pissed her off. I didn't bring her along on most of the jobs on taking down the Sons of Samedi, and starting giving more attention to Pierce, which really ticked her right off...Even after we retook Stilwater, and after I started bringing her along on more jobs, she still felt the need to prove herself to me, to Johnny, to the Saints, and anybody who thought she was weak. And hell did she prove herself to us…

She fucking gave her life for us, she gave her life just to avenge Johnny's...

* * *

_"Look, I'm not here to fight...We need to work together...I can help you."_

_"Right, right...Johnny's dead because of you! Because of you, your sister, and your fucking French Boss!"_

_"Johnny's dead – Because he thought he could do everything on his own!"_

_"So what's in it for you, Viola?"_

_"I get to watch Killbane suffer…My sister's dead, Loren's dead, and Matt will probably be dead in a couple of weeks...The Syndicate isn't anything anymore..."_

_"We'll make them all pay, Boss…For Johnny, for Kiki..."_

_"My name's Viola, Pierce! Remember the Goddamn name!"_

_"Just gimme a fucking chance!"_

Viola; she was a very troubled one in the gang. She was once one of my enemies, and was prepared to kill us all for her employers. She might have actually killed Johnny, or helped put the final bullet in him, or just stood and watched him bleed out...But, revenge isn't everything, I know that now. Sure, I still have morals and what Viola did was wrong to all of us, but she knew that and didn't show any desire to kill Gat...She wasn't a true gangbanger at the start, just a hitgirl for hire for Loren...But after the death of her sister, she realised that money wasn't everything, and that she needed loyalty and friends more than money and power, and so she came to the Saints, and we gave her the home she needed. She wasn't a member for a long time, but when I knew her, she could definitely handle herself in those gunfights…Whenever I saw her fighting, she'd seem reckless at times, always prepared to give anything just to piss off her enemies.

She was suicidal; after her sister's death, she couldn't give a damn about anything, but revenge…If she lived longer, she would have learned that revenge wasn't always worth it; she wouldn't have made the same mistakes I had made...

* * *

As I thought about the three Saints that I lost to the Syndicate and STAG, I realised that it wasn't just those three friends that I could save with what I was about to use today; I could change everything. I could save every single one of the friends I lost; Lin, Carlos, Aisha, I could save the Saints from all of its downfalls…Stop Dex from going to Ultor, stop Johnny from getting arrested…Stop Julius from blowing me up on that goddamn boat, and sending the Saints to the ground. Every single mistake I have ever made, whether it was letting Johnny get kidnapped by the Vice Kings, or killing any of my enemies quicker or sooner than later; Fuck, I could do anything I wanted with what I'm about to see…The endless possibilities…

* * *

_"Seriously, movie deals, commercials?_

_Saints name used to mean something more than body spray and some ass-tasting energy drink!"_

_"I had him – I fucking had him!"_

_"They failed you Johnny…But I never will…I'm your number one fan!"_

_All of a sudden, I thought myself in this old arena with fire circling around me; it looked like the colosseum in Rome…I heard roars coming from all around me, but I couldn't see anybody around me. The fire and the screams were getting louder, and I was getting pissed._

_"Get the fuck out of here, pussy!"_

_"Oh I'm the pussy, am I Boss?"_

_"Johnny?"_

_"You fucking sellout…We're all think you're a fucking disgrace. Eesh, Lin, Carlos, Shaundi, Viola...You're a fucking embarassment to the Saints...You'll pay for what you did, what you did in our name!"_

_"What I did!? Johnny! Johnny, I did what I could do, there was nothing more-"_

_"But it's what you did, that fucking got me in the ground! You sat on your ass for months, signing autographs and licking other people's asses…Then when you had to step back up and rob a fucking bank, you couldn't even do that right!"_

_"That wasn't…My fault…"_

_"Really? When did we ever try to rob a bank like that before? When did we go and shoot some guys, then sign an autograph to a random fan-bitch! When did we ever use a fucking skycrane to steal a fucking vault out of the Barrios? Boss, the Saints stood for more than this! You've become what you've always hated…All you care about is making sure your head is above the water…_

_You've become a lot like Dex, a lot like Julius even-"_

_"Don't fucking say that Johnny! I know, we abused our fame, and forgot what we were supposed to do…But one of my new friends has built something – She's going to help me fix all of this!"_

_"Will it even matter, will we ever forget about the mess you made?"_

_"Sh-Shaundi?"_

_"You had the chance to fully avenge Johnny, to get revenge on all of the Syndicate, and set things right. But you didn't. You let Miller live just for some fucking discounts, bought your fucking territory instead of wiping out the bitches in it, and you didn't even kill Hughes after she sent a goddam airboat after you!"_

_"Shaundi…I did avenge Johnny…And I avenged you and Viola…I did everything I could have…I killed all the bitches that fucked us over; Matt was just a kid, he couldn't do shit to us even with his techno-shit, I made sure all of the Syndicate were out of Steelport and I'll get around to Hughes on day. Shaundi – I did everything I could!"_

_"Not everything…"_

_"Viola?"_

_"You didn't have to go after Killbane…You could have just told Pierce, or Oleg, or Zimos or anybody to help Angel finish off Killbane, then gone to save us…Or you could have just been a man and sent Pierce and Oleg to save us while finishing off Killbane!"_

_"Viola…Things were more complicated than that..."_

_"But no, you had to be the drama queen you are, and had to make 'that hard decision'. And what did we get afterwards? A toast. You had a fucking party after Killbane died, and you gave a few words on Gat and Shaundi-"_

_"You're wrong! I did what I had to do! If I saved you, would you have been happy that I let Killbane get away, after all the times you were prepared to sacrifice yourself just to kill him? And would you have been happy Shaundi? And Gat, you would have done the same thing…You'd be pissed off about it for a while like I was, but you would have done the same…"_

That shut the three of them up for a while, but they didn't give up, they were still pissed off for what had happened, and the fire grew stronger, and I was handcuffed to the ground. I fell and could barely kneel, but as I looked forward, I could see every single person I have ever killed; the Alderman, Julius…And everyone who had died because of me.

There were a lot of people.

I screamed and begged to be release, but they didn't listen, and brought out the knives. Carlos took out one knife and slit my left cheek with it, then Julius walked over and began trying to tear all of my fingers off. Before I knew it, everyone was standing above me, kicking me into the ground, and I could barely breathe as my mouth was filled with soil. I could feel my face burning off the heat, and my arms being trapped by the soil, then the worms eating my skin…All that shit for this? They didn't even hold a funeral for me; a few words, a few smirks and they all walked off into the fire…I couldn't let them do that to me, after all this, I couldn't just lie there and grovel, I couldn't!

I FUCKING COULDN'T!

* * *

_"Boss? Boss! Wake up, we're here!"_

_"Pierce…I'm out of time…We have to do this now…Make the peace...And end the questions..."_

_"Shit, where are your pills? You're not having the nightmares again are you?"_

_"So what if I am? I have a lot of…Demons, to face…"_

_"But most of them ain't your fault!"_

_"Johnny…Shaundi…Viola…Carlos…Aisha…Lin…They were all my fault...I could have saved them all..."_

_"NO! Just forget about them man, you have to move on!"_

_…_

_…_

_"How can I ever move on?"_

_"Maybe what will happen today will help with that…Now let's go and meet Kinzie!"_

_"Alright, let's see how everyone is…."_

Pierce handed me another bottle of those damn pills, and I pretended to take some when he walked ahead of me, but I spat them back out to the ground. I didn't want to forget about any of them, not now, not ever, even if their deaths were my fault…They were my responsibility, I was their leader, and I failed them...Even that fucking nerd, Jimmy, knew what I've fucking done. The warehouse looked bigger than I had remembered and there were a lot of neon purple and light blue lights all over the warehouse, presumably Kinzie had decided to pimp out the warehouse…She must be getting more sociable and _'Normal'_. I walked in, and saw all the younger saints working and moving computer stuff around; a few of them stopped and stared at me for a bit, then whispered to each other, then walked away after Piece glared at them. Stuck up bastards. There were a lot of soldering equipment and lots of scraps of metal as well as some small sparks of fire in the air, and the smell of crispy remains of machinery in the air. And there was also…Pancakes? Pancakes and syrup? Wow, Kinzie really is opening up a lot more, I wonder if it is Oleg that's getting her to do that...

They were all standing in the centre of the warehouse, all grouping around the machine. Angel, Kinzie, Oleg, Tag and Zimos. Angel was wearing some kind of boxing robes that would be worn before a wrestler went into the ring; they were purple with the same decals as on his mask, meaning that he has been fighting a lot again in the ring. Kinzie had straightened her hair and unbuttoned her FBI jacket, and let the purple hoodie underneath emerge; huh, it was what teachers would call a _'metaphor'_, if I knew much about literature back at school. Oleg pretty much looked the same, he never changed the way he looked or acted, same old Oleg that I could trust. Tag was wearing a newer jacket and pair of jeans that fit him, the armholes were sown properly to fit his size and he looked more sophisticated; he stood in a formal manner and sounded a lot more like the real Johnny, but it wasn't exactly the same…This shit was just creepy, but I just couldn't turn him away, he was what remained of my best friend, could I really let that go? Could I really just put that down and pretend that it never happened? And then there was Zimos, whom looked a little older, but his taste in clothing wasn't as his jacket was a brighter purple, and he was holding a pimp cane shotgun as well as his auto-tuner.

_"It's been a while, Boss, the machine is ready."_

_"You're sure Kinzie? I don't want to get my hopes up for nothing…"_

_"No…It is definitely ready. Ever since you gave us the word to do this after you killed Cyrus, I've had the smartest of the Saints working in here. To be honest, we've never actually left the warehouse; we had other guys coming in with takeaways and drinks for us, and all we've done is focused on getting this done. I admit; I'm stunned by how this worked – Newly discovered energy sources, technological advancements that I could never have prepared for, and the endless possibilities that we could use this for – It is life-changing."_

_"Yeah, um…What exactly is it Boss?"_

_"I'll get to that Pierce-"_

_"He has a point, keeping secrets within your own armouries and with specific members leads to many different scenarios…And most of them are very destructive for us. You really shouldn't have needed to keep this from us Kinzie, from me…"_

_"I'm sorry Oleg, but it had to be done."_

_"And with that aside, are you going to tell us what this is all about?"_

_"More stripper poles?"_

_"Fine Angel, I'll tell you, I'll tell you all. As you remember, Killbane sent his Luchadores to destroy all of Steelport, and Cyrus fought back hard. In the middle of it all, we joined in the fight, and did everything we could. We thought we were actually going to die, but we managed to survive. Killbane was trying to leave Steelport whilst that bitch Kia had Shaundi, Viola and Reynolds tied up at the statue on Magarac Island, rigged to blow…_

_I had a choice; a choice to either let Killbane go and save the three, or get revenge on him for everything that has happened and let my friends die. In the end, I saved another one of my friend before he got killed, and we went on to finish off Pryor…Their deaths were not in vain, and we finished off all of the old business. Then I realised something; we could have done so much more. We could have handled the situation better, done so much better, fuck it; done a lot of shit better. But today, none of that matters. If Kinzie is right in what she has said, then we'll have the chance to correct every single one of our mistakes…_

_The time machine – Is ready!"_

They were silent for a while; Oleg scrunched his eyes up and rubbed his eyes whilst Kinzie looked towards him in a troubled state, Pierce was moving his head back and forth as he kept on mumbling _"Get the fuck outta here…"_, Zimos was laughing beyond belief as he too was excited with what we could do and Angel calmly smiled at what he had heard, and gave a cool nod towards me. It's nice to see that at least some of my crew are happy with the choices that I'm making...

_"A fucking time machine?"_

_"I know, I know…But think of it Pierce; to go through all of our biggest mistakes and be able to save those who died; if we went back in time, we could save Shaundi and Viola, whilst past us kills Killbane!"_

_"It is a good idea, I'll admit-"_

_"Good? Good? Mexy, it's a mightay fai-ine idea!"_

_"It will not work…"_

_"How so Oleg?"_

_"Time travelling is enwrapped with multiple paradoxes and difficulties; if one simply removes an action in the past, then all of the consequences of that action will cease to exist. Then one must question as to whether or not the action that drove the time-traveller to travel back in time would happen…And then the complications increase heavily from that point onwards."_

_"Oleg…"_

_"What did that book said I was reading earlier this week about time travelling? Oh yes; 'Step on a butterfly, then the children of that butterfly will cease to exist, and eventually, the butterfly species will become extinct in the future'. Actions, have consequences. And these brutal actions, will have devastating consequences…We are talking, not just devastation within this city or across America, but across all of Earth, and maybe across the whole of our galaxy…"_

_"Oleg, I have known you for a long time, and your intellect has been your one quality that I have never questioned. But I need this. I need to know whether this is something I could do to save my friends. I need to experience every single opportunity I can have, and see whether or not my friends can still be saved. Imagine the greatest failure in your whole life; imagine it eating away at you for years and months…How far would you be prepared to go to stop it?"_

_"'Imagine'?"_

_"Yes."_

_"…Fine."_

_…_

_"A FUCKING TIME MACHINE?"_

I burst out laughing with the rest of the crew as despite the long debate, Pierce was still in shock at the very creation of the time machine.

_"Kinzie, I know your super smart and everything, but how the hell did you manage to get this to even work?"_

_"I'm glad you asked-"_

_"Nice one Pierce…"_

_"Oh ha ha…With the large expansion in the empire, I've sent hundreds of Saints across the globe, unearthing and stealing things that could be of use. Rare elements, strongly built gadgets, we even discovered a couple of new elements ourselves…Bringing everything together was not easy, but it eventually worked, and all of the energy sources fused together. Electricity, geothermal sources, these nth metal remains…All renewable and non-renewable sources combined together…To create the ultimate source of energy…"_

_"So…It works then?"_

_"Yeah, it works Pierce…"_

_"Then let's get down to it!"_

I jumped into the small machine and watched as Tag and Oleg brought the front and back of the metallic box together, and the neon-light blue and yellow electricity lines ran through the box. I thought for a moment that this was just a joke; it looked too small to be a time-travelling machine. All the movies either had the time machine to be a whole car, or a seat with a spinner, or even a freaking hot-tub. This was just a small box that I sat in with flashy lights, was this the real thing?

_"Recognition required. System analysis processing"_

_"The fuck is this Kinzie?"_

_"It's just making sure that it's you and not somebody else…I wanted to make sure that the security was good before letting this loose; who knows what could have happened."_

_"Good thinking Kinzie, and incidentally, how am I even talking to you?"_

_"Small micro-speakers placed within the grid inside the time-box. I amplified the loudness of me speaking through them by upgrading the energy transformer for me to speak through-"_

_"Kinzie…"_

_"Ok, ok, it works, that's all you need to know…"_

_"Good…I'm not out of time anymore!"_

_"Nope…your actually within it!"_

_"System analysis complete. Please enter the wished date, time zone and exact place for time-travel."_

I had to think for a while what I wanted to do first; who I wanted to save first or kill first, and what I really wanted to use the machine first for. It was slightly scary as the control panel thing just appeared out of nowhere on the bright white screen in front of me, and for a while, everything around me made me feel like I was dead. The whole spiritual feeling I was getting only made me more excited, and it was then that I realised what I had done.

I had the power to bend time to my will. I HAVE THE POWER!

_"Um…I want to go five years in the past…Yeah, the day that Julius set up that bomb on the boat, the day that the Saints died, the day I got sent into a fucking coma! Alright, I think it was…September 1st, 2006?"_

….

….

..It was silent for a while, then I heard sparks, and the screen in front of me started turning from a bright white to a dark red. It looked and kind of felt like I was getting shot in the gut, and then in the back of the head…I heard the frantic tapping of laptops and the sound of Pierce bitching like his usual self.

_"Damn it! What the hell is wrong with this thing!?"_

_"Kinzie…The fuck is happening?"_

_"It's…It's malfunctioning…I built this machine and hacked through all the databases and files of thousands of governments across the world in the past month; no one on Earth has built something like this before…I-I've tested a lot of theories, and one of them strongly suggests that if two people try to time-travel in two separate machines, the end results are disastrous."_

_"But…Who would be trying to build a time-machine?"_

_"Is that really a question Angel?"_

_"But you've said that no government files or databases have kept a record of such developments. What about criminal agency groups or even mercenaries across the globe?"_

_"I can't figure it out Oleg…I've checked through all the intel, had Saints sent across the globe and wiped out anyone who posed a threat to us…There isn't a single person alive who has in the past wanted to fight against us or shown an interest in time-travel that has actually been used to develop something good enough to actually work…"_

_"There will always be people wanting to fight against us Kinzie…"_

The screen then turned a pale red, and the electricity was running through the box more thoroughly, and the electricity turned to a dark orange colour whilst the screen kept blinking one and off. At this point, I was panicking beyond belief; I couldn't feel my hands or even hear myself screaming for that matter, all the annoyance from outside was silence now.

All I could do was remember; remember what I was doing this for, and I remembered the risk that I took to do this. I then closed my eyes, and waited for the action to have a consequence.

_"Date entry 'September 1st 2016' registered. Time-travelling sequence, activated."_

_"Wait what? No! NO!"_

The box started to shake, and I could feel the vibrations and electricity running through my whole body, and every single fibre of my being shook violently with the time-travelling. This wasn't normal, the pain wasn't normal, what I was doing, was far from normal and like Oleg said, what I was doing was unethical. I could see the end of a vortex in front of me, and I could feel strong winds clashing with the skin on my face, and then the electricity grew until I closed my eyes and screamed. I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until all of a sudden, it all stopped…

_"Time travelling sequence, complete. Recharge time period required. 5 hour recharge time period required."_

Fuck, it worked, it fucking worked. But not the way I planned; I wanted to go into the past and correct my mistakes, not go into the future…That would just cause more mistakes. The box opened, and I stretched my arms in delight and finally getting out of the damn thing, then kicked it for what it had done. Then I looked around the room and realised where I was; the warehouse, well, 2016 version of the warehouse. It was really, really dank; darker and filled with more spider-webs and rats than usual, but there was also no lights, no flashy purple lights like Kinzie had built. There were also a lot of holes in the walls of the warehouses, and all of the light in the room seemingly came from the cracks, until I looked towards Kinzie's room; the laptop light was on and I could see a familiar shadow standing tall.

I ran eagerly up the stairs to see what was happening, where my success had gotten me over these five years especially with my track record. The stairs were very creaky and I could see a lot of guns and ammo sprawled all over the steps, then I looked through the door. My jaw dropped and my eyes widened as I saw the familiar face; a large scar was across his entire face, he wore a jet black suit but with a purple Saint pendant and a purple Saint tattoo on his neck. His hair was slicked back and he had a small goatee underneath his stern mouth, and it was also slicked in a similar matter. I looked at his empty face, until it clenched with anger and frustration, then I paid more attention to who he was.

He was me, that broken, pissed off motherfucker was me.

_"You…What are you doing here?"_


	2. Chapter 2 The Surprise

**_Gotta say, huge thanks to all the feedback that I've gotten so far, honestly did not expect all the compliments or the quick amount of reviews and favourites and followers. Huge, huge thanks for all that. I'm hoping to make this story a decently long one, maybe about fifteen chapters, same old 5,000 word stuff. Things will get more interesting, and I might make a sequel out of it. I hope I did more of the feely stuff in this one, it was pretty hard to introduce new grief for the Boss, but nevermind._**

**_The Official Facebook Community Page 'Fanfiction Corner Of The Peel' is up and running, and is the centre for those who want to talk and ask questions about these stories. Hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'll be sure to update soon!_**

* * *

_Life as a gangbanger ain't easy; sure people read about street gangs in newspapers or watch it all happen on the news or even in their own eyes, and they think that the only hard parts are just risking life every day. But they're wrong. That's the easy part. At first, cooking a grenade or just trying to reload a gun is tricky and frustrating, but over time, you get over it, and you learn to deal with it. It's like riding a bike; at first, you're scared about riding around moving cars, and then you get scared about wondering whether you're gonna cause some shit for somebody. But then you get over that, you try to have faith in yourself, and you become just like everyone else, who are as just as scared as you._

_But the real hard part about life as a gangbanger, is the losses. When you roll with someone for months, and eventually years, getting through the hardest shit of situations, and then you watch some muthafucka come by and shoot her in the stomach, or drag him by a car, or just listen to your best friend get shot to shit after his girlfriend was fucking decapitated…The hard part, is moving on with life, and getting told that it don't matter. Of course it fucking matters. It will always fucking matter. You know those people, helped them get by, save their lives every now and then, and then they'd return the favour. You learn to trust them, count on them to watch yo' back, and you grow too much on them. Then they just die; they just…Die._

_But just when you get the chance to fix all of those problems, just when you wake up one day and get told that you can go back and stop all that shit from happening, a whole lotta shit comes up. It's like walking into a bar, and the bartender gives you your tab, and you've actually got the money to pay him…Then a bunch of assholes show up, take the money, kill the bartender and blame you for everything. Getting blamed ain't fair; especially when you're standing there, doing everything you can and you're just lost for words. But this isn't normal anymore, this isn't what I wanted…This isn't what I was hoping to end…_

_I just wanted to save my friends, not watch them turn into assholes…_

* * *

"_You…What are you doing here?"_

He stood in front of me aiming his desert eagle at my face, giving me questions that I could barely understand. The anger and frustration in his eyes started to die down, and he slowly pulled the gun away from my face after a while, then I had enough time to get my breath back and look at his face; God he looked like shit. He had blood on his fingers and around the back of his neck, a lot of scars near the top of his hair, well aside from the big one that just divided two halves of his face.

The suit he was wearing wasn't an actual suit of sorts; he was wearing a trenchcoat with body armour underneath it, and a small purple tee-shirt underneath that, ammo clips sprawled across the armoured vest, and his pants looked like army ones, only black and with more grenades and flashbangs in the pockets. His boots were a dark grey, but with dark purple laces, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop being traumatised by his fucking eyes; they were bloodshot and looked like Pierce's when he tried coke and some shots at the same time.

"_You're not supposed to be here! None of this, is supposed to be here!"_

"_I…I don't understand…I don't understand any of this…I'm actually in the future?"_

"_Yeah…The 'future'. You say it as if this is all just a shitty 80s sci-fi film to you…The time box…Why did you have to use it so soon? Why didn't you check who was using the other ones?"_

"_I-I…I-"_

"_Why!?"_

"_I…Didn't know…"_

"_You didn't know about the other time boxes?"_

"_No…"_

"_Hmm, probably a good thing…Which means…This is the first time you've ever seen one of those?"_

"_Yes, Kinzie made it!"_

"_Kinzie?"_

"_Yeah!_

"_That…Didn't happen…"_

"_The fuck? Of course it happened, I saw it happen!"_

"_In your time, maybe, but as far as I remember, she never made it or gave it to me. We stole it, from the same person that fucked us over big time. In your time…Did you do it? Did you kill him?"_

"_Who?"_

"_Dex! - Who else – Did you kill him!?"_

"_No…He's been off the grid for years…"_

His face dropped after I told him that, and he slammed his hands onto one of the broken desks as he glared at the desert eagle that he had placed on the table. His eyebrows kept clenching and unclenching every time he looked across the warehouse, and then back to me finally after tapping one of the buttons on the laptop, and bringing something up on the screen.

"_In that case…You need to go back…We ain't got time to chat about shit…You've got to get back and find Dex, before any of this happens!"_

"_Before what happens? What did he do? What was so bad, that he did!?"_

"…_It's better if you don't know…Now where is that time box?"_

"_On the floor below us…I left it there after I saw the light off your laptop…"_

"_Good…And this isn't my laptop…I'm borrowing it, from a friend…"_

Future me gave a deep sigh after explaining the laptop, and hurried downstairs to get to the time box to send me back to the past; it was probably a good thing deep down that I was going back home before finding anymore shit out…But what's the rush at killing Dex? I had that time box built so that I could go back in time and save Johnny, Shaundi, everyone…I didn't want to go into the future and prepare for any surprises, or did I? Then again, it would be useful if I stayed around, found out whether any more of my friends were in danger, or about to get shot in the fucking face. I…I don't want that to happen. Fuck future me if he thinks that I'm just gonna fuck back off to my own time without asking at least one thing…He knows me too well to not expect that.

He deserves me an explanation, as to why Kinzie's warehouse has been blown to fucking shit.

"_Future me – What's going on – Why do I need to kill Dex?"_

"_God…Kinzie was right, I did ask a lot of questions when I was younger…"_

"_And you still don't answer them!"_

"_Fine…I've checked the time box over, managed to hack into it with what Kinzie gave me, and everything is ready for you to go back home. But back to Dex. In your time, he was planning something big, something that he was preparing after you – we, took over Steelport. In my time, he was the first one who had built the time box, and he was gonna go back in time to use the time box to kill me – us. But I stopped him, took the time box, and kept it out of his reach. I looked for him, but couldn't find him…He had gone into hiding…"_

"_Dex…Is that why I'm here? Has he done something?"_

"_In this time, there were dozens of time boxes, but they were all destroyed by…Assholes. Dex – Our Dex, I mean our time Dex…He may have found, built or stolen another time box and gone back in time, and stirred shit up…"_

"_That's…What Kinzie said…She said that if two people travel through time at the same time, the results would be disastrous-"_

"_Yes! That's right! That must have been what happened…But where's Dex now…Well, I'll stay here, keep an eye on things and get my hands on another time box…You've gotta go back to your time, find our – future Dex, and either kill him or bring him back."_

"_Right…And future me?"_

"_Yeah?"_

"_This shitty future can change if I kill Dex right?"_

…

…

_.."Hopefully…"_

He pulled some kind of hard drive out of the time box, and stepped away after it bleeped and glowed blue again. I was about to touch it again when I looked back at him, and then got confused by something; I knew me too well, and one part of this just sounded too fishy…

"_Hey, we've never been that smart have we? So how come you know how to work this thing without Kinzie?"_

"_I…Have been away from Kinzie for a long time…Things kinda came up…And the last time I saw her, she gave me the blueprints to these things. I've worked with a lot of these in my life, learning what makes them work, and what makes them blow up…"_

"_Alright…You definitely never went back in time before man?"_

"_Never, Oleg gave me clear instructions to never use these…As they would just cause…_

"'_Devastation across not all of this city, or America, but all of Earth and the whole galaxy!''"_

We both burst out laughing after we quoted the scientific words that Oleg gave on the matter at the same time, and I could see a small twinkle in his eye when he started remembering what Oleg said to us. He was the only one I could really understand; he shared my grief, he found it hard to remember but didn't want it to stop…But the way he cried, it just made me think that he had more to grief over, more to feel like shit about…

"_Ok, it's ready…I've registered the right time and date for you to go back…"_

"_Thanks, man…"_

"_Can you do me a favour?"_

"_What's that?"_

"…_Go easier on Pierce…He can be a whiny bitch, but he's our – Your whiny bitch…And share our grief with the rest of them…Let them understand…It'll make life easier…"_

"_I will…You have my word…"_

"_Thanks…Don't ever let him doubt you…And one more thing…"_

"_Yeah?"_

"_Don't ever turn your back on any of them; Angel…Zimos…All of them. Whenever you're around them, don't distance yourself and share shit with them. We might not understand what Kinzie ever says or whether Angel is just gonna flip at us…But time can be a healer; it can do good things for people like us…Get over shit, get rid of new shit, and enjoy life…"_

"_If you say so.."_

"_I do…I do…Now come on, you need to get back to your own time…Before-"_

"_MOVE – MOVE - MOVE! SECURE THE PERIMETER!"_

The fuck is this? Within minutes, some type of black ops army kicked the front wall of the warehouse down, and started firing bullets…They threw a smoke grenade, I had no idea what the fuck was happening at this point, and before I knew it, I couldn't breathe…I was on the floor…Gagging for breath…Remembering what future me said to me…

But I couldn't remember any of it; I could barely think, it was too much of a big blur…I was dying and I couldn't even think about shit!...

…

…

* * *

"_He's right Jewels, everybody's gotta be canonised…"_

"_You ready for this playa?"_

That day was a fun day, it changed everything; I walked into that cemetery and looked on at all the big guys dressed in purple tracksuits and denim jackets with purple hoodies, felt kinda out of place since all I had on was just a black tee-shirt and some jeans…The minute Julius told me what to do, I snapped my fingers and clenched my eyes, then smirked at the old dog the minute all the recruits jumped on me…

"_Oh hell yeah! Fresh meat bitches!"_

"_Easy Johnny, it looks like he's doing ok…For a newbie…"_

I could hear them all chanting and cheering me on as I was defending myself; blocking a few punches, kicking some guys in the nuts whilst pulling at the girls hair, then dropkicking them all into the ground. At least, that's what I thought at first. Then I realised they were all cheering the Saints on, they were chanting more recruits to beat the shit out of me…That's the thing about the Saints; it don't matter who you are, if you go up against them, they just keep coming, and coming, and coming, until you give up. Even Johnny was enjoying himself, watching me get tired as I had about two fat guys hold me down whilst some chick kneed me over and over in the face. But when I broke free and grabbed her by the knee, and smashed her into a tombstone, that's when Gat stopped and started smiling at me, then Dex got jealous and pretended to join in on the chanting.

He was a fucking slimy rat, even back then…

* * *

"_Julius…I don't see what's the big deal…"_

"_The deal – Is that you went to the Columbians without me!"_

"_We didn't even get to meet 'em Jewels…"_

"_And don't call me 'Jewels'…You know I don't like that…"_

"_Fine. Julius – You put me in charge of The Los __Carnales__…Shit! Now you've even got me saying it…"_

"_Dex. Do your job. Don't think you fucking better than you are...When it comes to the Columbians, you come to me."_

"…_Yeah…"_

"_What?"_

"…_Yeah, ok."_

I remember when I got my first couple of jobs for the gang, and after I did them well and got a steady pay, the others started trusting me and watching me as I did what I did. Some of them even sat and freaking gossiped about the gang to me, probably so that I knew too much and that if there really was an informant, they could stitch me up for it…Though it wasn't even me…I heard from a couple of them that Dex was plotting to start an uprising in the gang; they were all scared about how much attention Dex was getting from Julius, and because he kept wanting more and more of it, they got scared as shit thinking that Dex was going to bump Julius off. That's the funny thing about Dex, even back then, he'd try whatever he could but he'd overlook things. When I rolled with that gang, I waited for Julius to slip up, then try something. At least then, all the others would still have my back, and I'd have no reason to have to find other people. But Julius never did slip up…He kept looking over his shoulders…Kept keeping his head over water…

But he didn't look whether other people's heads were over water.

* * *

"_Sup Dex?"_

"_I know you're a cop."_

"_The fuck you talkin' about?"_

"_Come on man; the tactics, the police station thing…The shitty haircut…You've got cop written all over you…"_

"_So errrrr…Whattaya gonna do?"_

"_Nothin'..."_

"_What?"_

"_I'm out Troy. I just got offered a job at Ultor; I'm dropping my flags, and going straight. I just wanted to make sure that we're not going to have a problem…"_

"_You motherfucking…"_

"_See you soon, 'Old friend'…"_

The first thing I did after I took out the new three gangs in Stilwater was celebrated…In my own way. Whilst Pierce and Shaundi got drunk and high with the other Saints at Purgatory, and Johnny was out fighting cops and robbing some high end clothes stores, I took a trip to the police department, and wanted to see one of my old friends. I found a couple of wiretaps that Troy used on Dex and Julius; they explained a lotta questions I had and opened my eyes big time. From that point on, my respect towards Dex died…If he knew that Troy was a cop, why didn't he do something? Why didn't he fucking warn me or Gat? But after I found those wiretaps, I found Dex's number, and rang the sneaky little bitch…He told me to meet him at the old church, and tried to jump me and Julius at the same time. What a whore. Gryphon was right, he was out of his league. All he ever did was tried to prove himself, and he tried to do it with style, but he could never do it face to face…I haven't seen Dex for years…I've talked to him over the phone, threatened him, mocked him, told him how I fucked him over and what else I was going to do to him…And then he ran. Went off the grid for two whole years. He thinks he safe now that he's out of my reach.

But the pussy will never be safe; he'll get what's coming to him. Now that the Saints are an international empire, we're taking the fight to him…

* * *

"_Hey!"_

_..._

"_Hey!"_

_..._

_"Wh-Wha?"_

"_Fucking snap out of it!"_

He pulled me by the hand and helped me from the ground, then threw a couple of grenades and molotovs towards the small army, then looked at me with a pissed off face; he knew that I was having the nightmares again…Of course he'd knew, if I knew, then future me would know right?

"_I'm ok…I'm awake…"_

"_Take the fucking pills! Take Pierce's advice! Here, take my desert eagle…And my phone…You need to leave – Now! I'll do what I can with the time box…Just go – Now!"_

"_Wait!-"_

"_NOW!"_

Within seconds, there was even more smoke around the warehouse, and I was getting a phone and a gun put in my hands, and then he pushed a button on one of the walls behind us. Within minutes, he pulled out an M4 rifle and gave me cover, then told me to walk through the wall…Walk through the wall, did he really think that I'd understand? Well, when I say it like that, I probably should have understood future me…Since he was me…Huh, guess this is why Angel always said it was hard to work with me…God, even I don't like working with me…

"_Take the car – The black sedan – And get the fuck outta here…It's not a normal sedan, it's got nitrous and some other toys…Call someone on your phone; Oleg, Zimos…One of the old saints that we know…Just go…NOW!"_

"_But…"_

"_Believe me…If you were me right now…You'd be jumping to do this. Making the sacrifice everyone else made for you…It's a fucking honour…"_

"_But I am you…"_

"_You know what I mean…I know you understand…"_

He threw the keys over and I grabbed them in the air, then bust open the window of the sedan and revved it up. Whilst I was moving backwards and opening the garage doors, I looked at the mirrors on the car; I saw him standing all on his own…Shooting over and over at the big army…He got shot in the right arm, and his arms shook violently in the air as he was shot again in the guts…He fell to the ground, but he was still shooting with the M4…How the fuck could he still fight? Oh, I know…Because he also knows too…He understands it all, why I wasn't scared about what the time box was going to do me, why I didn't jump when they blew up the walls…

He knew that I didn't care whether I was going to live or die, because either choice would be a blessing.

The doors finally opened, and I sped like a demon out of the garage and out of the docks, and towards the main city…I dared to look back at my mirrors, and saw him winking at me as his hair waved in the air, and one of the men knocked him out with the end of their AKs…Just like that…Life and death are funny things; one seemingly takes forever, whilst the other takes seconds…When you think about it like that, everyone would just say that they'd prefer life over death, because you get to have more time doing stuff that you like, spending more time to actually do whatever it means to live…But I just couldn't understand that. The meaning to live, the reason to get up in the morning, the idea of smiling at people and acting like your normal self even though all that shit goes on every day. Before I drove too far, I saw him stand back up for a brief moment, and he shouted out to me, something I just couldn't understand…

"_Hey! Kill Dex! Save me! Save everyone! Don't just do it for yourself! Do it for them! Because they deserve more than this…They deserve more than us…Give them what I could never give them…"_

If I had the choice, I would have chosen death over life. Because death, it can be quick and painless. Life, just gives you reasons to hate yourself in the morning, to hate yourself when you try to act normal and makes you hate yourself even more when you think about shit. Life was fucking torture, and death was the doorway to getting out of that shit…

I managed to get away far enough from the garage, future me was going down, but I couldn't do anything for him…He made it that way on purpose; he wanted to be just like Gat and all the other dead saints…Can't blame him, I understand…I thought I could saw loads of those men running after the car…Trying to chase me down with their guns…Shooting RPGs at me, but all of a sudden, there was nothing. No noise, no wind, no shouting or screaming for more ammo in the background, just, nothing. I thought I was in another one of my dreams, or that I had dozed off at the wheel; Viola would have tried to kill me normally if I had did that…And Lin would just tell me that I shouldn't be allowed to drive…

I parked the car over the road, I was near a hill where the old Burns Hill Plant used to be, and then I just looked down at the city; there wasn't anything there. No Planet Saints, no Friendly Fires, no fucking strip clubs for Christ sake; this wasn't Steelport. I couldn't even see anybody walking around, no homeless guy trying to steal my jacket, no conspiracy theorist trying to hassle me or even a baby across the street in a pram screaming like a banshee.I looked out across the rest of Steelport; there wasn't much else either. I couldn't see the New Colvin Island, I couldn't see Carver Island or any of the giant green smoke coming out of Aparice Island…But what I did see, was giant towers in the Downtown district. Like, bigger than usual. About the size of Loren's Syndicate Tower in Loren Square. Well, it used to be Loren Square, until we called it _'Gat Square' _to piss off the old French fucker even when he was in Hell.

Those towers were jet black; orange-looking windows dotted across the towers, but they were all jet black. The walls around the Downtown district were very big, had barbed wire across the top of it and there were big moving lights and cameras all around the walls, looking towards the ocean. The way it looked made me think of the history books that Oleg gave me after I killed Cyrus, when he told me that shit like that happened across the world…Guess I should have listened to him…If anyone knew how to deal with this kind of stuff, it was Oleg…I had to call him up on the phone; the phone was a bit dusty like mine but when I looked at it, there were a lot of new numbers that I didn't recognise, a couple of them looking like ones that I used to know, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. I found Oleg…And I started calling the old big guy up…

"_You have risked a lot sending this call…What is it?"_

"…_I-I…I need your help…"_

"_Why am I not surprised...Where are you?"_

"_Burns Hill Powerplant. Just to the east of it. Where are you, I need some help getting my head around this…"_

"_I've been 'trying to get my head around this' for the past five years, and it still hasn't worked…I've sent a couple of my men for you, they'll pick you up…"_

"_Um…Thanks man…"_

He sounded really…Stranger. Stranger, but older. His Russian accents strangely sounded stronger over the phone, and he sounded so pent up, but I could tell that it was the same old Oleg. It was always the same old Oleg…I stood around for about ten minutes, wondering what was going to happen until I saw a truck coming with about six or seven people in the back of it, and then they jumped off and grabbed me by the shoulders. They said something in Russian, I couldn't understand it, but they sounded calm, so I had to trust them. They pushed me into the back of the black sedan, and two of them sat on both sides of me whilst another drove the sedan, and we started following the truck. I was getting…Dizzy again…I couldn't keep my head straight…Maybe it was the situation or the smell, or the fact that I was five years in the goddamn future, but I just…I couldn't…

* * *

"_Pierce, come on man, we've gotta move!"_

"_I'm winning here! I'm 'bout to win a fortune, can it wait?"_

"_No…End the shitty chess game, I need you both here soon…"_

"_Fuck – My – Life. Don't touch any of these pawns or kings…We'll finish this game up when we get back, I ain't starting up a new game for the thirteenth time just to get called out of it again…"_

"_If you say so…And by the way Boss, are you thinking about learning latin?"_

"_Ain't got time, Oleg…Kinzie's fucking put me up in this shitty education course for the computer stuff…It's fucking annoying…"_

"_I can help out with that if you'd like. Talk to Kinzie about the matter, or even help you through it."_

"_It's ok man, I think I'm getting it and Kinzie doesn't have much to do about it anyway…Just get around to finishing these games up soon…But right now, we've got some pussies to kill!"_

"_Fuck yeah Boss!"_

"_Yeah…Right…"_

Oleg Kirrlov. The forty year old Russian superman, as Kinzie called him. He used to work for the KGB, spent a couple of years with them until they ended after the wars in Afghanistan, and then Oleg started working as a freelance. Then one day, he got fucked over by the Syndicate, by Philippe Loren. They promised him a lot that he wanted; security and a lot of money, because they could promise a lot of money and could lie pretty well about the security. They lied to him. They hooked him up in their tower, poured all of his blood out of him, and used it to make fucking weird clone shit…I saved him, gave him everything that Loren promised him and more. And he returned the favour by keeping my back. The best thing about Oleg, aside from the fact that he was 8 foot 2 and could flip a car in less than a second, was his intellect. His quick thinking and his philosophy really helped me out a lot in the trickiest of situations…It was good to have a new brain in the gang.

What I didn't notice though was how much more of a Saint he was becoming. He was becoming less and less of an old agent for the KGB, and was actually becoming a Saint. His accent was growing less evident; he was using American terms and enjoyed our games, and grew attached to someone. Kinzie. He really liked that girl. Not just for a quick fuck or anything, but for the real thing, the real deal. Should have seen it from day one, I mean, the signs were all there and everything, but I just didn't expect it…

* * *

One of Oleg's thugs slapped me by the face and woke me up; we had apparently arrived at the place where Oleg was. What a shithole he was living in. They pointed me to this small hole near a cemetery, and guided me through these really dark tunnels, until I found myself at the entrance of an underground city. I never saw anything like this; underground shops and weapon dealers, families living out of actual bricks and scraps of metal, but in a freaking underground city. There was a big line going across the top of the big hole, carried buckets of water and vodka across the whole hole, and it dropped down to those who needed it. I was walking through the small streets, amazed at the civilised society that I was witness to live in. I then found myself standing outside the big palace; must have been city hall. I saw Oleg coming out of the doors with about twenty young men following him, but he didn't look like Oleg…He looked…Different, not the same old Oleg…

He wore a grey jumper with his name across the left side of his chest in red letters, and he had a backpack filled with lots of guns and explosives in the back, and he wore dark camo green cargo pants with his pockets filled with more weapons. He wore grey boots, with dark purple lacing…All of his clothes reminded me a little of what future me looked like…Guess they were still good friends…Hopefully. He walked towards me as I walked towards him and was about to greet him, then he sniffed and fixated his eyes onto me as he pulled his head back in confusion. Then, like a mad German Shepherd, he grabbed me with one of his hands and dangled me into the air as he stared towards me with the same confused face expression; what was so wrong? I was me – He was him, well looked like normal him…This should have been a nice normal casual reunion for us…

"_Oleg…What are you doing?"_

"_How do I know you are not one of them…"_

"_Not one of what?"_

"_Do not act so stupid, the real you knows who I'm talking about!"_

"_It's a long story….I'm me, but old me. Well, younger me. You know, the me back when we took over Steelport. Look, here's what I'm trying to say…And bear with me as it's a complicated story…I-"_

"_Enough of your stalling!"_

He smashed my head into the ground and I found myself trying to shield myself with my arms, but the minute I tried to defend myself, his men aimed Uzis and other types of submachine guns at me, and they started laughing with Russian jokes. All I could gather from what they were saying, was Oleg's name, meaning that they must have either made fun of Oleg, or they were begging him to squeeze me to death. How could anyone be that cold? How could someone just meet another person for the first time, and just ask for them to be dead? Oleg never turned to look at his friends…And only kept his eyes on me…I saw a couple of families behind him, watching him, wondering what he was doing, shielding their eyes and looking scared shitless…

One of their babies wouldn't stop crying; Oleg hated that, crying. It made him nervous, always made him question as to why a baby needed to cry…What was so wrong with its small life…Before I knew it, Oleg had raised me back from the ground and into the air, and then he punched me with his other fist to get my attention.

"_Tell me something that only you would know…What is my darkest, strongest, and biggest secret?"_

"_I-I-I…"_

"_TELL ME! TELL ME DAMN YOU! FUCKING TELL ME!"_


	3. Chapter 3 The Nightmare

**Sorry for the long delay, A levels are really time consuming for me. Really, really happy with all of the reviews and views that this story is getting, it really motivates me enough to continue writing. As I know a lot of people are liking this story, I'm using all of the short time into this story, so my others probably won't be updated until the holidays. Huge thanks for all the feedback and feel free to continue; either on the official community page, or even here in the form of reviews or comments. Enjoy!**

**The Fanfiction Corner Of The Peel – (Community Page)**

* * *

_Time._

_Some people say that it's a healer; others say that it is a cancer. A few say that it's what you make of it. I try to never listen to any of them; time is time , it never lets up and never intends on helping you or trying to kill you, just drags on, and on, and on. Nobody is as old as time…Nobody lives forever, nobody can remain the last man standing, everybody has to fall down eventually, after trying to stop a lot of shit in little time…_

_Whether you're sitting in your own filth in some penthouse, waiting forever for a phone-call that would change everything, or if you're just trying to figure a way to make everything right; time never tries to wait for you, or comes at the shittiest of moments on purpose. I guess that the saying that time is what you make of it could be right; that you have to use it to your advantage. But sometimes you can't, like when you barely have any time at all, and you have to use it to get big results…_

_It's fucking impossible; in the end, you're always disappointed…_

_You would think as a time-traveller, that you would be able to have the power over time wouldn't you? But even when time comes as a blessing to you, when you welcome it with warm arms like an man returning to his family after fighting in a war like a hero, when it helps you get somewhere and achieve something fan-fucking-tastic, like when you're late for work and you find that there is no traffic, and you actually manage to get to work on time…It always stabs you in the back. When there is a good side to time, there is a bad side to it._

_And hell am I feeling the bad side to it…_

* * *

"_TELL ME! TELL ME DAMN YOU! FUCKING TELL ME!"_

I tried to gather every breath I could and explain the shit that had happened to me and future me, but I could barely keep myself awake, let alone talk casually to the big giant. His hands were like iron fists around my neck, and I found myself clawing at his large paws, struggling and struggling to break free. The families and people in the background could not keep their eyes off us, and the annoying bitches chanting for Oleg to snap me into two started getting others to chant with them, but nobody listened to them thankfully; they didn't want violence. They were crying, just at the sight of Oleg strangling me; were these what remained of the Saints? A bunch of pussies and families left to fend for themselves in an underground city? I thought travelling into the future would let me see a better Steelport, well to be honest, any Steelport would have been better than the one that Pierce ended up building…

"_I WILL RIP OUT YOUR VOCAL CORDS, AND DANGLE THEM IN THE AIR AS YOU TRY TO VOMIT ONTO THE GROUND! NOW ANSWER FOR YOURSELF! WHAT-IS-MY-SECRET!?"_

"_You…You were…a mem-a member of…KGB-"_

"_NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"_

"_You…You were…Kidnapped by a gangbanger…Tortured-"_

"_A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE!"_

"_You…You were…In love…With a Saint…Kinzie…"_

His dark brown, bloodshot eyes released themselves from the rage that had consumed the old Saint, and the reminder of the _"Rare intellectual"_ that he loved made him realise who I was, and his eyes began to twitch at the memories that we both shared of what happened on that day…He must have remembered as well as I did how much losing the other Saints meant to me, it must have meant a great deal to him…Maybe living here in this cavern without the Saints or specifically Kinzie made him more pissed off than usual…

_"…I'm sorry. Safety procedures. We can never know if you're one of them…But how, how are you so…Younger?"_

_"I'm not the me that you know, exactly...I time travelled here from five years ago accidentally, and now, future me has been kidnapped and I have no idea where the fuck the time box is."_

_"Hmm…I see."_

_"…So, Oleg?"_

_"Yes?"_

_"The fuck happened to all of this? Why are you living underground, why are there no Saints here and above all, what the fuck happened to Steelport?"_

_…_

_…_

_"He did not tell you?"_

"Tell me what?"

_"*Sighs* Typical Boss…Always afraid to face his mistakes, and always trying to make up for them…I cannot let you learn of the events in the past five years as they would cause devastation-"_

_"Yeah, yeah, 'Devastation not just within this city or across America, but across all of Earth, and maybe across the whole of our galaxy…But future me has been kidnapped and I have no idea if he's even still alive…I need to get back to my own time, fix all of this shit, then try to forget everything in this nightmare. So you're gonna have to tell me what in God's name has happened, and how half of Steelport has managed to drown itself into the fucking ocean…"_

_"…Very well. But I know you. You will not want to hear all of this, but it must be done, and you must return to your original time…And fix all of these, these…Disappointments and atrocities."_

_"Right."_

_"We will go into my home within the caverns, and I will explain everything to you. There is a lot to reveal, but it must be done."_

_"I know, I know…Lead the way."_

_"Oh, and by the way Boss?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"You never change do you? 'Forget everything in this nightmare'….It's always a bad dream to you that you can try to change isn't it?"_

_"What?"_

_"Nevermind…Just an observation…"_

He looked towards a horde of his thugs and shouted something in Russian to them; he looked pissed as hell and then pointed towards a group of small houses near what looked like a betting shop, and then Oleg walked over to one of the mothers and continued talking in Russian, then stroked the forehead of the baby that she had in her arms…He looked so, disappointed in himself, one of the many qualities about Oleg…He tries to keep everything perfect, and most of the time he does a good job of it, then at the times he doesn't, he's absolutely disappointed in himself…Reminded me of me a little, that was probably because he was one of the main Saints, and he had rolled with us for a long, long time.

He looked towards me and patted me on the back, then told me how far his house was from where we were, and we walked through the small market place in the village…It wasn't really a market place though, or a village, or even a place to live…This was the fucking underground, the place where moles and rats live and the dead have their flesh ripped off by Goddamn worms…How could Oleg be so desperate? So desperate, to live in a shithole like this? Then again, a lot of my friends used to live in shitholes; like Angel. He lived in a shithole just to motivate himself, to keep himself strong…With all the people to look after and all of the thugs to train with, I guess that's what Oleg was doing; Taking a page out of Angel's book.

_"So….This is your place?"_

_"I suppose that you could call the house 'My place'…I take it the older you did not explain as to why we are forced to live here?"_

_"No, we really didn't have time to chat…"_

_"Well…This, is the new Purgatory…"_

_"You've got to be fucking kidding me…"_

_"This is the main headquarters, or at least, the only one I know about…This is where we all live; most of the remaining Saints, the survivors of Steelport and Stilwater, and the legion."_

_"'The legion'?"_

_"Again, you really are just like your older self…After what…Happened, I was left on my own and forced to fend for myself. I tried to work freelance for a long time, but it did not exactly go to plan…I returned to the motherland and reunited with a lot of old warfriends…And we returned to our old ways and formed The Legion…Our organisation where we share everything equally, do not care for petty arguments amongst ourselves and fight, and die, for each other. The true meaning of brotherhood, is what we have shared most…"_

_"…Heh."_

_"What amuses you?"_

_"Your leadership skills. You worked a lot in the Saints, and I guess it's all paying off…But I'm still going to need to know everything that's happened Oleg…"_

_"I know, but for now, you should rest…You have encountered a lot in your time here, and rest is crucial for fighting…These days, fights always present themselves at the worst of times, so you should always prepare yourself."_

_"But-"_

_"Go on, rest…I'll answer all of your questions tomorrow…"_

_"…*Sighs* It's a deal…Old friend."_

Oleg gave a small smirk after I had shook his hand for his hospitality, and he then showed me the way through his house, and where I'd be sleeping. It was a decent house, I'm not sure how many rooms a normal house in an estate would have since most of my life I've been living in swanky penthouses, but this felt…Homey. The minute I walked into the house, it was just weird; parts of it looked like a normal family house like the family portraits, the old TV in the corner of the room and the TV dinner trays left in the main room…But then I noticed the stacks of rifles, rocket launchers and other weapons held against the walls, and dozens of more thugs sitting talking in Russian. They were all arm wrestling, playing cards, playing pool…Anything to prove themselves to the others…It really was a brotherhood…Oleg has really stepped up his game.

_"This is your room, in the morning, I will explain everything to you…If we're not dead by then…"_

_"What's that supposed to mean?"_

_"Nothing…Now, sleep. There is a lot to discuss tomorrow…So sleep."_

_"Right…And thanks."_

_"For what?"_

_"I know this is really weird, meeting me and trying to understand why I'm here-"_

_"Anything for old friends. And I do understand."_

_"Oh, cool…Will I be meeting the other Saints tomorrow?"_

_"Erm…Maybe."_

He then walked away from the room and picked up one of the AK-47s, then walked down the stairs with a bunch of thugs behind him; he looked like a fucking terrorist, walking so casually in a fucked up house in a fucked up underground city…With hundreds, and maybe thousands, of Russian thugs behind him…This was, just crazy. I didn't want to see this shit with the time box, I never wanted to even be here or go to the Goddamn future, I wanted to go to the past, and fix my mistakes…Fix everything. And now…

I've just got a whole lotta new shit to fix; Just fucking great…

* * *

_"Hey, I was thinking…We might die here…Anything you wanna get off your chest?"_

Pierce…In the middle of our fighting with both the Luchadores and STAG, he started to lose hope in us and wanted to know our last words before we died. I thought he was gonna ask me what my real name was, thank God he didn't. I couldn't stand seeing a Saint lose hope in the gang, in the middle of a fight…And it wasn't just anyone, it was Pierce; my new right hand. Pierce always wanted to step up whenever he could; he wanted so much attention back when we were retaking Stilwater; I put him in charge of the Ronin, but he did all the planning and Gat did all the enforcing…And that wasn't enough for the _'Hardcore Gangsta'_, so he had to help Shaundi out with the Sons of Samedi, which was a dickish move. Sure, she had just been kidnapped by that little bitch Veteran Child, but she was slowly proving herself.

For some time, I thought Pierce was going to end up like Dex; wanting more and more power, before I knew it, he'd probably try to bump me off like he tried to kill Julius…But then he started feeling more and more of what it meant to be a Saint; he helped out finish off the Brotherhood after Carlos died, and Pierce did pretty darn well…Sure he was whiny here and there, but he always had my back. Whenever Shaundi was trying to sober up off the coke and alcohol, and Gat was busy fighting elsewhere, I'd always end up calling Pierce to watch my back; he was good at that. True, a lot of Saints were good at that and Pierce was also good at getting himself kicked to the ground, and always cried out for me to pick him back up…But that's what we do. We pick each other up, and clean each other off. We never quit, and it don't matter how many times we ever go down, what mattered is how many times we got up…And for Pierce to turn around and ask if we had any last words…That was just fucking annoying.

_"Pierce, don't be so negative!"_

_"He has a point, if Kinzie were here, I'd pour out my heart!"_

_"What!?"_

_"It is rare that I find an intellectual equal!"_

_"Fuck it then Pierce! I've read Jane Eyre thirteen times!"_

_"Good to know Boss!"_

We were low on ammo, and they were just coming, and coming, and coming. All the rounds in Pierce's explosive pistols ran out, and all the bullets in my AK also ran out, and Oleg was getting really tired. For a brief moment, as the VTOLs and the green trucks surrounded us like a pack of vultures, waiting to finish off its, I just looked at Pierce in disbelief, then he handed me one of the laser rifles that the STAG troops were using, then I just smirked as he clicked his gun ready for ammo, and Oleg let out a huge roar…And I could have sworn that it made most of the Luchadores shit their pants. I never saw those two guys fight so hard that day; Oleg was stamping on the Luchadores' faces as if they were annoying cardboard cut-outs, and Pierce was smashing a riot shield through a small army of the STAG shoulders, then threw a grenade at one of the trucks with a mounted machine gun on top…And the fire cloaked the whole island.

_"Need some help?"_

_"Kinzie?"_

_"We're in luck-Some of the Saint recruits have managed to end some fights, and now their free…Sending you some support."_

_"God fucking bless you, Kinzie…We'll come back soon, we've got shit to discuss…"_

_"Oh, I already know about that…"_

After she ended the call, I looked up in the sky at the fleet of VTOLs coming towards us, and their fire cannons weren't gonna stop firing at us. I thought shit was about to get worse…Until I saw the Saints coming in. They were in their own jets, their version of the VTOLs, and they took out the STAG VTOLs…They then rang me and I told them to just fire on the whole island; I didn't have time to give specific coordinates, we were Saints, we made sure all the pussies got what was comin' to them, no matter what sacrifice we had to make. They gave us a fucking air strike. Man, did that help…I could see the dead Luchadores soaring into the air, with one of their legs missing, and the skin off their backs flopping in the air…God were they paying for what they have done…Shaundi and Viola would have been pleased, so would Gat…

I never felt so happier in my life at that moment; we were back to doing what we were supposed to be doing; fighting for our lives. All that 'Sky-Diving/Fighting, pony-cart driving, computer simulation shit'…It was nothing compared to this. This is what the Saints have done for all their lives. This is what I was used to be doing for the Saints before we retook Stilwater. The adrenaline rush, the loud noises of cheering and bitches dying, and mags of ammo being tossed through the air…That was what you were supposed to expect in a life of a Third Street Saint. Not signing autographs or having someone drive you through downtown in a purple fucking limo.

_"Killbane's planning on leaving Steelport!"_

_"You're kidding me…"_

_"He's at the airport! There isn't much time!"_

_"Angel…"_

_"NO! I can't let him! WE-CAN'T LET HIM WIN!"_

_"Angel-Just hold on until I get there-Oh shit…"_

_"Hello Saint."_

_"Yeah yeah, I get it, you're gonna arrest us; big fucking deal…"_

_"I don't want to arrest you; it won't solve anything…Once you blow up the Magarac Island, the whole world will see your true colours…"_

_"I don't mean to disappoint you bitch, but the Saints aren't about domestic terrorism!"_

"We'll see about that when Shaundi and Viola are found in the wreckage…"

_"You uptight sly fucking-"_

_"Good luck; you'll need it…"_

I couldn't believe my ears when I had put the phone back into my pocket; lives were at stake, both the lives of my friends, and the lives of my enemies. The fuck was I supposed to do? Let Shaundi and Viola die just for that bitch Kia? Or let Killbane escape so he could kill another one of my friends? It was life, and death. No point bitching about it, I had to decide what to do. Not what I wanted to do; what Shaundi and Viola would have wanted me to do…Shaundi hated Killbane and the Syndicate so much for what they did to Johnny…And Viola wanted Killbane dead more than anything for her sister…They would have done the same if I was tied up on that statue; I know they would have…Of course they would have…

_"You can't make it to both of them, and you can't let Shaundi and Viola die! Fuck Killbane! He ain't worth losing our girls!"_

_"Killbane is why you are here. Don't let everything Shaundi and Viola have fought for be for nothing…"_

_"Guys…I'm gonn-"_

Before I could even stop to ask them to give me cover to get off that fucking island, more and more STAG and Luchadores made their way onto the island…And they blocked my path. One of the fucking bastards in one of the Luchadores truck drove right into me and Pierce, and we fell all the way down that hill, right to the bottom near the water…Oleg was stuck in-between all the STAG vehicles, trying to rip out the engines as well as any muthafucka that tried shit with him. Grenade after grenade, rifle after rifle, fist after fist…We did everything we could. But time was running out, I had to make a decision…I had to do something…Or we would have lost everything. Pierce grabbed one of the grenades rolling down the hill and threw it back up, I thought he was gonna blow his fingers off…But he made us a path, and we got back up the hill.

Don't count how many times you're knocked down, count how many times you get back up.

_"We'll take care of shit here, give you a distraction! Now go!"_

_"Pierce…"_

_"Just go! We ain't got time for any more last words…Go!"_

_"…Argh, just…Don't die on me man…And Oleg…Smash."_

_"Heh. Of course…"_

I found myself running through the crowds of STAG soldiers, and I was using my rocket launcher to knock them all outta the way, I couldn't believe how fast I was going, or how well Pierce and Oleg were taking care of everyone…True a couple of the vans I was trying to get into blew up in my face, and I thought I was going to get knocked out for a moment, but I pushed on, there were too much at stake…Found one of the STAG trucks that didn't have its wheels shot out, and I drove through the bridge…But something was blocking my path, something didn't want me to go after Killbane…I couldn't figure out what it was, but I couldn't get past; some little bitch was trying to stop me. But it wasn't a Luchadore, or a STAG soldier…He fired a rocket at me and the front of my truck blew off, and I ran out of the remains but it all set off on fire…And I managed to dust myself off and brought myself together again…Then went on to face the son of a bitch that I should have killed long ago…

_"You fucking bastard!"_

_"Nice to see you too, playa…I was going to bring you a bouquet of flowers, to return the favour, but I thought you'd want a nice rocket launcher up your ass."_

_"You're not getting out of this one…"_

_"Maybe, maybe not…Like I told you a long time ago; this isn't just some streetgang from Stilwater, that you're messing with here! But you didn't listen, did you? And now, all your friends died 'cause of it…"_

_"What are you talking 'bout?"_

_"Come on…Johnny…And soon Shaundi and Viola…They're gonna die 'cause you weren't cautious, 'cause you didn't think ahead…You forgot who you were. And now, this is my time-"_

_"No it ain't!"_

_"It is Boss…"_

_"Pierce?"_

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Pierce casually walking up next to Dex, on his right hand side, loading his pistols and giving me a cold smirk; the fuck was he doing? Why the fuck was he licking Dex's behind? He stood, with Dex patting him on the back, side by side…Almost like they were brothers. Pierce wasn't even wearing his usual clothes anymore…A dark charcoal suit with a white shirt underneath and a striped black and dark orange tie, with polished leather shoes, and no gangsta hat on his head…That wasn't Pierce; That wasn't the Pierce I knew. The Pierce that saved my life, the Pierce that used to bitch when Shaundi would finish off one of his complicated plans, the Pierce that would convince me into spending the night in Tee N Ay with him…

This was just a shadow; a pissed off shadow that was confused, confused with what was happening in life…And he just had to go with the flow.

_"You could have fixed everything; Avenged Johnny in time…Saved Shaundi and Viola…Brought the Saints back on top…But you failed. You chose Killbane. You fucking, chose Killbane. The jumped up wrestler from Mexico, who had an even bigger ego than you…What happened to you Boss?"_

_"Fuck you say? I never changed, but you have! Now put the guns down!"_

_"But you have. You used to be cool, used to care and used to look out for us. Sure, you wouldn't show it to us, and you always had to be an asshole…But you made sure that we'd survive. Now look at us; the whole city is up in arms, and you could have saved it! You could have fixed everything!"_

_"Pierce…The future isn't set in stone…I had no idea what was going to happen…"_

_"But you have the next best thing don't you? You have a time machine; the power to fix all your mistakes, and you couldn't even do that right…"_

_"I-I…Yo-You know a lot about the time machines, don't you Dex? Why don't you tell us about them?"_

_"Heh, sure…You gonna say hi to the other man?"_

The other son of a bitch walked across the bridge, wielding an AK and looked as pissed as hell. His glasses were torn, his clothes were ripped and covered in bloodstains, and his eyes were bloodshot. He had dozens of bruises on his face, and his hair was all shaggy, and it also looked like he was walking with a limp. Then I covered my eyes, I couldn't look at what else was wrong with him, why he struggled to move, why he was in so much pain…He looked so pissed off.

_"The future isn't set in stone; that's one thing you're right about…Was I supposed to die, Boss? Did you think that one day, I'd die just like all the others, die the same way for the same shit?"_

_"No…I was praying to God that I-that I'd…Die before you."_

_"And that didn't happen, did it? I got put in the ground, and you could have done something 'bout it…Even after I died, you could have done something…"_

_"I did! I fucking killed their leader! I fucking killed the French bastard!"_

_"Belgian…"_

_"Shut up Dex!"_

_"No…You could have done more…I-I thought…The cemeteries that have been filled because of these men, the friends they've killed, the people they've put in a trunk of a car, and then pushed into the sea…The people they've dragged across the ground, and then laughed when a bullet was put in their heads….The people who were fucking decapa-…._

_…_

_…_

_I thought…I thought I'd be the last one…After everything that has happened, I thought I would have been the final straw; that you'd have seen sense and did what you should have done years ago…What did I get Boss? What did I get?"_

_"Jo-Johnny…"_

_"WHAT DID I GET!"_

_"We raised you a toast at the funeral…Said a couple of words for you and Shaundi, made a few jokes, had a few laughs…Before STAG stirred up more shit for us…"_

_"Huh…How long did it take you? To kill Loren?"_

_"A while…We had to get set up and shit-"_

_"HOW LONG!?"_

_"A couple of days…Maybe a week at least…"_

_"Huh….So what did you need to set up?"_

_"…Yo-You know…Had to bring the crew over, find a place to set up shop, get some money and guns coming in…"_

_"Oh yeah? And where did you get that? Off Japanese game shows and handing out shit from our clothes store?"_

_"…Yeah…"_

_"Wow…Fucking great…So whilst Loren had my cold body on the floor, and he was fixing up weapon deals…You were off building your reputation like usual?"_

_"Johnny, it weren't-"_

_"HOW WAS IT LIKE!? HUH!? Wh-Wh-What? Was it, one or two walks down the red carpet a week? Or, or, or three trips to the tattoo pallor a day? They could have all been dead by now! You spent more time, having your suit drycleaned, whilst Killbane was fighting in the ring and warming himself up for you…Everything could have been perfect…Sure I'd still be dead…But Shaundi and Viola could still be alive…_

_I could have died in peace…I could have moved on…Blood in, blood out…Now there ain't no more blood…Where's your blood Boss? How come you've never fallen down, or nearly gotten yourself killed? Why, why must it always be us, risking life and day, just for you?"_

_"It's not just me Johnny, it's al-"_

_"LIAR!"_

He jumped me from across the bridge and started knocking my brains out, and I could see the pissed off look in his eyes, as well as the tears being knocked back by the reality of the situation, and he was slowly enjoying what he was doing. He was ending it all; ending it all and doing it like it should have been done…He was going to do everything himself, until he died…That's what a true leader does, not a leader who sends his friends off fighting in a city, whilst he tries to cover himself from the bullets…Gat was right…I deserved this…It wasn't just because of their deaths, it was because of everything else…I let Pierce change from the whiny bitch that loved So Sick, to becoming a son of a bitch that has become too fake, like Monica Hughes…I let Shaundi get too wrapped up in all this shit, and now, she's let all the anger gone to her head…And I didn't even give Viola enough time to open up about shit…..

I was too busy taking care of myself, that I didn't notice how everyone else was feeling…What they thought of what I was doing…

_"We're all pissed! Shaundi-Viola-Eesh…Fucking everyone! We're all pissed! Why aren't you dead Boss!? Why do you have to survive everything, and let everyone else be the hero!?"_

He shook me back and forth as Pierce and Dex loaded their weapons, and walked towards us side by side, whilst the blood from my mouth poured down my Saints waistcoat…And my sunglasses fell onto the ground, then Pierce smashed them with his feet, and Dex lit a cigar for himself, then threw the lighter down onto the bridge, and fire surrounded us; again. But they didn't move away, Pierce was just shooting at me with his pistols, and Dex was just chuckling the day away with the cigar in his mouth, and my original right hand, Johnny, was shaking me violently…

And shaking…

And shaking…

And shaking…

* * *

_"BOSS! WAKE UP!"_

* * *

_And shaking…And shaking…_

* * *

_"Snap out of these wretched nightmares! You never did get over them did you, and you never even took your pills, did you!?"_

_"Oleg…Same old…Same old…"_

Oleg was shaking me violently back and forth, as I found myself sprawled across the floor of the old underground house, and some of the thugs stood outside with their AKs stood against the walls…I thought they were laughing for a moment…Then I realised that they were holding their faces in shock; they must have heard about me from Oleg, about my nightmares, about what was wrong with me…Well, what was wrong with me lately….

_"Enough of this! I need to tell you what has happened, to calm you down, and end all of this!"_

_"Oleg…This will never…End…I was stupid enough to ask Kinzie to build the damn box…Maybe, it's a good thing…To know that they're pissed off 'bout being dead, over what happened to them, and what's going to happen to everyone else…It's…Motivation."_

_"…The truth is the truth. We may never know whether everything is true or not, or if everything is permitted…But you need to hear my truth…You must know what has happened…"_

_"Fine, Oleg…Go ahead…Make me happy…See if I feel good again…See if I actually feel like me…"_

_"Boss…"_

_"You know, I haven't felt like me in about six months…Well, now, five years and six months…But I still haven't-"_

_"Boss!"_

_"Right…"_

_"Very well…It all began after we took over Steelport…We heard of a disturbance in the Arctic Circle…That a gigantic vessel had just sailed into the ports, and the crewmembers had made their way somehow threw the ice…And built a fortress…We got word…And set off in pursuit. Deep down, we knew what was happening, who was setting up all of this shit…Who was back on the grid…_

_We knew…That we had to finish off Dex for good this time."_

* * *

_"Will this be the day Boss? That we finally force this green-snake into the corner of a tree-bed?"_

_"Ha ha, today will be the day Oleg…Today, we're gonna avenge everyone, properly!_

_Search every building! Only Dex, is to be spared!"_

_"What? We're here to kill him, right?"_

_"Of course we are Pierce! But we need to figure out what he's planning first! Johnny and Pierce, search the west of the compound, and Angel and Zimos, search the east! He has to be somewhere!"_

_"You got it Boss!"_

_"And what shall we do?"_

_"Oleg, Kinzie's watching over the entire base in the chopper on her laptop, she's got us all linked together in the comms, you and I are going to head straight in through the north…If he's trying to hide, why set up a secret Black Op base in the Artic?"_

_"No ordinary man in their right mind would not choose to venture into the Arctic Circle…We are certainly not ordinary…Dex will likely be waiting for us; he has risked too much to suspect that we are not wise to what he is planning."_

_"True. You've always got a good explanation for this shit don't you?"_

_"It is one of my many attractive qualities…"_

_"Haha, tell Kinzie that when we're done here…Now, shall we does this, old friend?"_

_"Lead on!"_

He ran across the glaciers and jumped across the thin ice with his rifle in the air, and I simply jumped down afterwards when he got to a safe distance, as my weight and the velocity fractured the thin ice badly. At least, it ensured that Dex could not escape on foot….We saw the compound; it was a fortress…Watchtowers across every corner, patrols with dogs and flashlights roaming all of the outskirts of the facilities, and all of the entrances were blocked by strong APCs and military tanks. Clearly, Dex was using every resource he could for what he was planning…We should have known by then the true extent of his anger and hatred against you…

He placed a silencer onto the tip of his rifle, and then whispered into his earpiece, and we crouched, and watched as Pierce stabbed one of the patrolling guards to the west of the facility, whilst Tag tore apart one of the dogs and buried the last guard's face into the ground. He truly was the exact clone of Johnny Gat; his brutality could not match anyone else's. The Boss nodded and then whispered back into his earpiece again, then pointed towards the east of the facility where we watched Angel and Zimos from afar do the same as Pierce and Tag; Angel jumped onto the back of one of the guards and stood on his hands, whilst snapping the guard's neck, whilst Zimos simply beat the other guard to death with one of his oversized dildos…And the two dogs were quickly flung across the frozen land by Angel, through an incredibly long distance…Angel grew much more after you killed Killbane; he has more faith in himself now, as well as the Saints, and is not afraid to kill anybody for any reason.

The Boss talked into his earpiece for a third time, from what I could tell, he was talking to Kinzie, asking if she had the final part of the surprise attack in place. He then looked towards me as the rest of the crew spoke into his earpiece, and I calmly nodded my head as he gave a small smirk that nearly broke his stern, concerned face.

_"Do it!"_

The main entrance of the compound was set ablaze, and we made our way into the fortress whilst our enemies were confused. Man after man, soldier after soldier, they all fought for their lives, and lost. We regrouped inside the fortress and prepared ourselves as the sirens rung out through our ears, and Pierce begged Kinzie for some of her painkillers, but she kept them all for herself; she needed to keep a clear head to stay focused, and Pierce was used to being surprised in those situations…We threw a grenade down the corridor and blocked the rest of the guards off with the debris, then made the way up the stairs to the top floor…Except Pierce and Zimos, whom opted for the elevator.

_"Do you honestly expect him to be up there, waiting for us?"_

_"He has nowhere to escape now Angel! We've got him cornered!"_

_"He always thinks of something Boss…Don't get your hopes up…"_

_"My hopes haven't been up in a long time Kinzie…Too many people have died for the Saints…And once we kill Dex, they'll be no more bitches out there who can cause anymore shit for us, at least not big ones!"_

_"There will always be plenty of wars across the world…And they'll always be blood spilled for various insignificant reasons…"_

_"And they'll always need men like us Oleg…Remember that."_

_"Right on Angel!"_

We finally reached the top floor after running up the series of stairs, and annoyingly found Pierce and Zimos sitting on the corpses of two guards outside the doors to Dex's office; this was the moment. The perfect moment. The moment, in which it would all end.

But it didn't.

We ran in, the Boss's rifle blazing and Pierce throwing flash grenades randomly whilst Tag started smashing up the portraits and desks across the office…But he wasn't there. It was just an ordinary office, with an ordinary laptop and ordinary filling cabinets…In the Arctic. The Boss threw his rifle down onto the ground in fury, and searched the desk for any more clues on Dex's whereabouts. And he found more than that; there was a webcam on Dex's laptop, and we could see Dex through the laptop. He was in a helicopter, presumably one that he had used to escape the fortress before we made our way to the top floor, and was heavily armed with military weapons and body armour. He had a grey amour vest on with a black jumpsuit that had dozens of ammo clips along with a small amour helmet on his lap. Multiple soldiers could be seen sitting next to him, all armoured even more than STAG were, or Ultor were when we first fought them…We should have known then…I should have known then…That there was more to this plan that we had dared to thought…

_"Come on playa, did you really think it would be that easy?"_

_"Muthafucking…Where are you, you little bitch!?"_

_"I am thousands of miles far away from you, quite enjoying myself actually. Hmm, make that, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands miles away from you."_

_"Wow, you're getting sloppy huh Dex? You were supposed to be the smart one of the gang, and now you can't even tell how far apart we are…You're losing yourself you muthafuck-"_

_"-There isn't really time for the pleasantries today, sadly playa…You may want to worry about what I am about to do…You see this? This is a detonator, not a simple detonator for some satchel charges, this is a detonator for a quantum-H bomb, and do you see that? Stilwater. The bomb is on that helicopter, and it's heading for the west of Stilwater, across the ocean, just on the borders of both Stilwater, and Steelport. You may think it is a small bomb, but it will ruin both cities, and perhaps even more of America…"_

_"Shit! We gotta head over there!"_

_"You should listen to your lieutenant…You have one hour to stop me before the timer goes off…Have a nice holiday, and don't worry, I'll take good care of your home…"_

_"You sly, double-crossing, deceiving, cock-sucking, muthafucking, BACKSTABBING, PIECE-OF-SHIT! YOU'RE MINE, YOU BITCH! When I save Stilwater and Steelport, I'll be coming for you!"_

_"Hm…You say that everytime we meet…Goodbye, old friend…"_

* * *

No….

* * *

And we ran and ran, and called for the reinforcements to come down with their helicopters…And we flew and flew, and called for more reinforcements to defend the headquarters…And when our helicopters went down, we swam and swam, and called for many boats….And after a long time…We had Stilwater in our sights….In our grasp….

* * *

No…Fuck no…

* * *

We thought we had him, thought we could stop it all…But it was hopeless; we tried to be everywhere at once, and despite how much we grew over all of this time, the Saints died in that city….And all of those people….Gone, by the push of a button…

* * *

NO! FUCK NO! YOU'VE GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME! AARRGGH! OH MAN! Oh man…No way….He's gotta be fucking kidding; all those people? Dex wouldn't just kill all of those people, just because of me, right?

….

….

..I thought with a time machine…I'd be able to save lives, make a difference, do some good for once…

But now…All I do is watch myself cause more shit, cause more people to die for me…Even ones that didn't even know they died for me…


	4. Chapter 4 The Reunion

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**The Official Fanfiction Corner of The Peel**

**Expect the next chapters and more of the older Saints to come soon!**

* * *

When you're sitting in a class in college, forced to listen to a lecture about which career path you would like to take or which one would be the best for you, you wouldn't think for a minute that you'd grow up to be a gangbanger, but you'd secretly hope it. But that's just the naivety that comes with a child. When you're an adult, you start praying for an easy life; a steady income of money so you can take care of yourself, a nice neighbourhood to live in so you don't have to go to sleep every night, thinking your neighbours will try to knife you in your sleep, and you just pray to God that some gun-toting maniac doesn't come by and try to end your shitty life.

I guess I didn't have a choice at this life; I've always loved doing what comes naturally to me, though I can't ever remember a time where I never tried to kill somebody or jack a car with a couple of friends to get away from five-0. It's interesting how, even with the craziest of lives like mine, you're always dependent on some people every now and then. Whether you're sitting bored as shit in your office, and your wife calls you and asks how you are, or whether you're standing side by side with your best friend, wielding a samurai sword whilst he wields a shotgun against a group of bikers, you'll always need somebody.

And it's not just the people that you know, it's the people around you, the people that live their lives just like you that are equally important. They are the people who do what they have to do to get by, whether it is a homeless guy jumping with joy when he finds a half-finished sandwich in a bin, or a middle aged man adding a zero to a check that he received from a car accident and claiming that he hasn't received enough money just to put his kids through school. But that's the worst part; when you don't know everyone. When you're driving through a traffic light cause you're late for something, and look in your mirrors to see an old lady having a heart attack because of your recklessness, or hear that because you've pissed off one bastard so much…

They wipe out an entire population just to piss you off even more…

* * *

_"How many?"_

_"Boss?"_

_"How many?! How many people died that day?"_

…

_"It's difficult to determine the exact number of losses. The west side of Stilwater was lost; the University district, the west side of the north island, the prison island and the nuclear district, nearly everything but the Saints Row district. That area survived, and the government began building on that. They tried building land around Saints Row, tried to rebuild all of Stilwater, but…They failed. Nobody wanted to live there anymore; it just wasn't the same anymore."_

_"I don't blame them…Who'd want to live in a city that was just fucking nuked?"_

_"*Sighs* Yes…And Steelport was nearly destroyed, well, you've already seen the remains. The New Colvin island was completely ruined, however the destruction in Steelport was not as colossal as in Stilwater…We lost a lot of important people that day…"_

_"Who?"_

_"Hundreds…The drug dealing mother, Laura…Our PR manager, Legal Lee...News Reporter, Jane Valderama…Old warlord, Mr Wong…The actress from Gangstas In Space, who was filming the sequel in Stilwater, Jenny Jarros…You mourned slightly longer for her…"_

_…_

_"And that was it?"_

_"No, just the beginning of the list…Hundreds, no, thousands of Saints looking after Stilwater perished that day…Though there were a few advantages to what happened…"_

_"Go on…Amuse me, see if I have a goddamn smile on my face…See if we can sit and have a fucking laugh about the good side of a muthafucking nuke, that ruined my home and killed all of my friends!"_

_"Boss…Calm down…Take your pills-"_

_"Shut the fuck up about the pills! So what if I remember? It reminds me that I'm still fucking alive!"_

_"Anyway…When we were heading back to Stilwater, to stop Dex, you had prepared for the worst…"_

_"I did? Wow…Go me…"_

_"You had already lost a lot during your time in Steelport, and you grew overcautious and paranoid that an enemy like the Syndicate would surface and attack you…And one did."_

* * *

I sat in the back of the helicopter with you and Kinzie, whilst Angel, Zimos and Tag were in the other helicopter, and Pierce was in a powerboat with a group of Saints that had accompanied us during our attack on Dex. We had Stilwater in our sights, and the morning was just emerging in the city as we saw the sun arise across the other side of the city, and the sunshine nearly burned away our eyes. Kinzie was tapping away on her laptop, and you were constantly on your phone, talking to nearly every single contact in Stilwater you had so you could warn them about what was about to happen…

_"He's nearly there Kinzie! Troy's sent a couple of his cops in a helicopter, and they can see him and a swarm of ultor bitches heading straight for the city! We're running out of options!"_

_"Boss, it's suicide, if you do it, then you'll certainly die!"_

_"But if I don't do it, everyone else will die!"_

_"It is completely unnecessary Boss…You should be planning how to get back at Dex for what he is about to do, keep yourself one step ahead of him!"_

_"I agree with Oleg Boss, he's miles ahead of us and he's probably got the bomb right in the centre of Stilwater now…It's hopeless…"_

_"Can't you do anything with your techno-shit!?"_

_"He isn't in my reach, and we've only just caught glimpses of Stilwater! There is no wifi out here, we're too far away from the city to cause an EMP and I've already alerted the FBI to what he is planning…I haven't received any word from them, meaning that he's likely passed through already by now, and killed everyone in his sight…"_

_"Then if we can't do anything here, then there's only one option!"_

_"You don't have to do this…Saving Stilwater won't bring back Johnny…Or Shaundi…Or Viola. We can rebuild, we can fight again later…Dex could be on his deathbed soon if we leave now!"_

_"NO! Why rebuild when we've already got something good here!? There's no options, send the helicopter up high…I've got to do this…"_

_"Boss…"_

_"I'm not telling you as a friend, I'm telling you as your boss! NOW DO THIS!"_

_…_

_…_

_"…If you insist."_

Kinzie then nodded to the pilot, who simply shuck his head in disbelief at what you were planning to do, and he raised the helicopter high above the sky, whilst closing in on Stilwater. When you thought you were both high enough and close enough to Stilwater, you took a parachute and jumped out of the parachute; after your arrival in Steelport, you became rather fond of skydiving. After that, we had no idea what happened to you afterwards, and we lowered the helicopter back to sea level so we could regroup with Pierce…

We waited for hours, wondering what was happening; Pierce was moaning over and over as to why you never told us what you were planning to do, Zimos was trying to flirt with Kinzie who was threatening to kill him with her laptop, and I and Tag had grew so bored that we decided to have an arm wrestle match…I went easy on him, do not worry. Angel spent all of his time on his phone, calling all of the Saints contacts in Stilwater, trying to figure out what was happening. After a while, we received our answer…

The city went ablaze; fires arose spontaneously over the towers, and the waves roared by the aftershock, and we had to hold ourselves together, in any hope that we'd survive the tidal wave. Amazingly, there was no need as you appeared out of nowhere on a powerboat, speeding towards us, and within minutes, we chased after you after we managed to catch glimpses of what you looked like; your clothes were torn and you were covered in blood, your hair all frizzled and out of place, your eyes bloodshot red with claw-marks across the face…And hundreds more of burn scars…

_"Boss! What happened in there!?"_

_"No time to chitchat Pierce! We've gotta get clear!"_

_"He's right! Keep driving Pierce!"_

_"I do not want to be involved in another fucking explosion! Shit!"_

We sped and sped for our lives, and managed to stay clear away from the explosion, but that did not matter…We could see what remained of the city; the falling buildings, the smoke cloaking the sky, and the constant sounds of the explosion ringing out in our ears…We were all silent and mortified; Pierce hung his head in anger whilst clutching a pistol, Kinzie was traumatised by the explosion and kept herself close to me but did not move her eyes away from the remains of the city, Angel stood at the bow of the powerboat, seething his teeth in anger and shaking his head at what had just happened, and Tag was pacing across the powerboat, whilst you sat in the same position, mumbling to yourself whilst clenching your fists.

_"Boss, what the fuck happened!?"_

_"It's obvious, isn't it Angel? I was too fucking late! I tried, I tried, I tried, I fucking tried, but it wasn't enough! The bastard…I climbed onto his helicopter and fought him, and I jumped out with him, and crashed into one of the apartment blocks in Shivington…I kept on punching him, and kicking him, and he kept on falling, but he kept on getting up…The sneaky bitch, he had a knife on him, and stabbed me in the gut and left me there to bleed."_

_"And? What happened after? What did he do?"_

_"He told me that it didn't matter that I had pushed him out of the helicopter, Pierce…He had a detonator….And…"_

_…._

_…_

_"He laughed when he fucking did it…He stood there on the debris of the apartment block, his mouth full of blood and his right hand covering his ribcage…And he just…Laughed._

_As the timer went off…He just stood there, and laughed…"_

_"So there was no way out? You had to make a run for it?"_

_"I pulled the knife out of my gut, and slit his back over and over, until I found his spine…The spine I thought he never had…I then stuck it across the bone, and grabbed most of the debris that I could and buried him with it…Then ran for my life…I got out of the apartment block, and ran down the street with my arms in the air, screaming that there was a bomb, but no one listened…_

_I jacked a car, and drove for the pier, screaming out of the window that there was a bomb, but no one listened…The leader of a well-known international criminal organisation…And no one fucking listened…"_

_"So what do we do now?"_

_"We rebuild Kinzie…We rebuild."_

* * *

Fuck…How could I have been so arrogant? To believe that I could have fixed everything on my own, and left my friends out in the cold water, and fought single-handedly against Dex's army? Oleg sat there in front of me, rubbing his forehead and tightening his eyebrows, whilst clearing his throat. Then it hit me that a lot of this didn't add up, a lot of things didn't make sense…

_"Hold up, you say that I said that I killed Dex, right?"_

_"…Yes…You told us all of this on the boat…"_

_"Then why, when I came here, and when I first met future me, he asked me if I had killed Dex? Why did he do that if he had already killed Dex?"_

_…_

_…_

_"You're sure? You're absolutely sure that he said those words to you?"_

_"Yes! He was adamant that Dex had travelled through time with a time box, and changed shit a lot…"_

_"I-I…I do not understand. No, I can't understand…This…"_

Oleg looked lost for words; he stood up, pacing across the room whilst clenching and unclenching his fists, and started moaning to himself. I stood up and cleared my throat, ready to ask more questions and to try and make the situation clearer, but before I could, Oleg cut me off. He shouted something in Russian, and hordes of his thugs came running in, and he gave them more commands, and they calmly nodded in return with small smirks across their faces.

_"Oleg, wh-what's wrong? Are we going somewhere?"_

_"Yes…We are going to rescue our you from his captors…But first, we will require some assistance."_

_"And where are we going to get that? Are the rest of the Saints coming? Pierce, Angel, are they all coming?"_

_…_

_…_

_"Some of them will come if I urge them enough to…"_

_"What are you talking about? We're Saints! If there's a chance that we can fix all of this, they should come running straight away!"_

_"I'm sorry, but some of the Saints have moved on from this; we all gave up the cause a long time ago, we lost hope in ever reclaiming Stilwater and Steelport, or trying to seek out the truth as to what happened that day…You operate alone now, the last day we all met each other was when you told us all to leave, that it was your responsibility to fix this mess…He still has hope even today after the past five years, that somehow, he will fix this…But now, I can understand how he is so desperate…"_

_"Oleg-"_

_"-We will be leaving soon! Let us sit and wait as the others come…Perhaps, it will be just like old times…"_

I smiled at his words as he was becoming the Oleg Kirrlov that I have always known; the brave tactical ruthless son of a bitch that would not stop until all of his enemies were dead and he had restored peace to those around him; same old Oleg. We left the small room and walked down the stairs, and left the house, and began walking through the dank caves. We were walking through the streets of the underground city as families came out of their homes and watched us…Though, I can't really call this place a city, I can't call this path a street. My God, how desperate was Oleg in getting all of these people to shelter? How broken must he have been to just give up in bringing our lives back to normal, and letting himself become satisfied with this shithole?

We're the Third Street Saints! We're not supposed to give up…

Oleg noticed the groups of people all watching his movements, and he threw his right arm into the air as he told everyone around him to follow him, and I began to question him as to what he was doing, but he was silent, and left me in suspense. He was becoming a lot like Johnny; always full of Suprises….God Johnny; if he was alive right now, he wouldn't be standing for any of this shit…He would have knocked some sense into Oleg a long time ago and led the fight himself! But that's what killed him in the end; I have to keep telling myself this, I can't keep going on as if Gat was this invincible right hand that could never be killed; sure, he survived a close range shotgun blast to the knee, and he managed to punch a Japanese Samurai after he stabbed him…But Gat was still human…Even though he was a fucking gun-toting maniac, he was still human.

We were all standing around what looked like the city's central area, as Oleg stood upright against a huge underground statue that looked like a man carrying a woman and a child with fire on his back; great imagination on Oleg's part…All of the men, women, and children stood around the statue along with some of Oleg's thugs as I too stood with the crowd, all of us in awe at what Oleg was about to say;

_"My friends, my neighbours, and my brothers…Today, we need to look back at something that happened five years ago. Yes, I refer to that day five years ago, the day in which we all suffered, in which we all lost a lot of importance in our lives…But it was not lost; it was taken. Taken from the deranged cold-hearted bastard-That ruined everything! Yes! I'm talking about Dexter Jackson! I know, it pains you all to even speak of his name, let alone remember to the horrors of that day, but hiding in fear will not repair the damage we suffered; I know, I've had five years to move on…But I cannot._

_We can never, ever move on from what has happened…Unless we can reverse it, so that it never actually happened._

_A lot of unexpected arrivals have arisen today, ones that hold great support for our cause…Great hope. We have discovered a way, in which we can change the past; I understand that it sounds impossible, but we have achieved the impossible on multiple occasions! The time to fight, to strike, and to avenge, has fallen my friends…We must rise out of this rubble, reclaim what is ours, and fight!_

_We shall fight! Fight for what we have lost!_

_Fight for every man, woman, and child that died that day!_

_Fight for all who suffered!_

_Fight…For clarity!"_

The crowds were cheering by this point and all of Oleg's thugs were shooting their AKs in the air, chanting to each other in Russian, whilst I quietly looked on at Oleg, and simply applauded him. That's all he needed; encouragement and approval. He had given up, and now, he speaks and fights like the Oleg Kirrlov I rescued from Syndicate Tower. Oleg raised his fists in the air as he roared in delight, and then approached me as I patted him on the shoulder…Or at least, I tried, I forgot he was so tall, I just had to pat him on the elbow.

_"Where to now?"_

_"Now, we shall return to the city…And meet our old friends!"_

_"Sounds good!"_

* * *

A large convoy of FBI-sized vehicles with Ultor decals stormed through the remaining streets of Steelport, and the entire islands in which the downtown district was formerly located in was replaced with one incredibly large fortress. It was similar to the Philips Building in Stilwater; however warehouses surrounded the pinnacle tower in the middle of the two islands, and large streams of smoke engulfed nearly all of the island. The Ultor vehicles passed through the security gates at the south of the island, and sped past the guard patrols and spotlights, then drove into the garage of the oversized tower. The driver, dressed in a dark black Ultor Armoured outfit with orange Ultor decals parked his vehicle in the garage as the other drivers followed, and he turned his head to the back seat as he glared at the drugged and beatened up leader;

_"Not so tough now, are you? The Boss will be happy to see you…And to think, you were supposed to be the leader of the Saints; the criminals who had their faces on every household appliance across America…It wasn't too hard to take you down."_

The Saints Leader struggled to respond to the arrogant soldier; he slurred his words and could barely left an arm. He had dozens of bullet holes in his armoured vest and there were small gashes across the sides of his face, and the leader flinched in pain as he tried opening his black, bruised eyes, and could do nothing but fall back into his seat and fall back into unconsciousness.

_"H-He…Has to find them…Find th-Them all…The Saints must return…"_

* * *

_"So Oleg…Where are they?"_

_"Be patient…They shall arrive soon…"_

We were standing by a couple of trees near the half-destroyed Burns Hill Power plant by one of Oleg's trucks, whilst his thugs loaded up their AKS and were chatting to each other in Russian. They were sharing cigarettes, arm wrestling, comparing weapons, doing anything to pass the time. I stood looking out across what remained of the city, and the thoughts of what had happened to my old friends started swirling around in my head, as if I was pissed, or as if I was having one of those nightmares again…God, this was taking too long, I need to do something.

_"Have they changed much? The Saints? Angel, Kinzie, Zimos, Tag, Pierce…Have they changed?"_

_"You will see soon…You must remember that it has been five years since we last saw each other, and a lot has changed for the worst; we have all been horrendously affected. But I believe that I and Kinzie have been affected the worst…Though that is slightly biased, so, you will have to judge yourself as to who has been the most dearly."_

_"Oh…So what are they up to? Wait, wait, don't tell me…Angel is the middle-weight champion of the world and is fighting unlucky bastards in Mexico, Zimos is cruising around the world scoring with any chick he comes across, Pierce and Tag are enjoying the high life in fancy hotels and Kinzie is…Um…Enjoying life more?"_

_…_

_…_

_"You will see for yourself, very soon."_

_"Ol-"_

_"-I said, you will see for yourself, very soon…"_

He grew aggressive after I asked too much about the other Saints, guess I hit a nerve. This was taking way too long, and I needed something to happen. My legs were growing dead off standing in the same position for too long, so I sat in the backseat of Oleg's truck, waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive. I noticed that one of the thugs had left an M9 in the front seat, so I took it for myself and checked for the ammo; fully loaded. Just my luck. I sat playing with the gun, thinking about what I was going to do to Dex for what he had done; how I was going to put a bullet in his thick skull for every single person he had blown to shit in Stilwater and Steelport, how I was going to enjoy killing him so much after all these years…Then I started thinking about who I was going to see soon, and who I wasn't. Johnny, Shaundi and Viola; they should be coming now with the others, we should all be meeting up again in Steelport, just like old times. I just don't get how any of those three could have died; they could handle themselves incredibly well. Johnny definitely could, the only times he was ever knocked out or kidnapped…Was always because of my fault.

When he got beaten up by the Vice Kings, that was because I didn't help him out, and just ran for my life, and when he was stabbed, that was 'cause I told him to get out of the fucking way…And Shaundi, she started out young, made a couple of mistakes on the way but so did I, and she got snatched a couple of times…Twice by the same bitch. I could have helped her better on both times; if I hadn't let her on and listened to her open up about Gat, she would have looked out for herself better, and took care of herself. And the second time, well…Of course I could done that better. But Viola, she never got kidnapped until the whole shit with Killbane and Kia…She took care of herself after watching her sister get slaughtered by Pryor, and she was a hardened, ruthless female version of Gat. The only difference was, Gat had attitude, and Viola only ever cared about getting revenge on Killbane, though, I couldn't blame her for that.

* * *

_"Boss! Throw me another mag!"_

_"It's all yours Johnny! Where's Shaundi and Viola?"_

_"On the other side!"_

We were on the Magarac Island, fighting for our lives against the Morning Star, the Luchadores and STAG, and we were finally winning. Gat was taking care of himself and kept on killing the Morningstar bitches that just came running into his bullets, and Shaundi and Viola were on the other side of the statue, holding their own. I could hear the two of them, taking care of themselves…This was, heaven. My best friends, all together, murdering my enemies, and despite our differences like Viola nearly getting Gat killed…Everything was working out perfectly.

_"I see Temple coming over by the east side!"_

_"We'll join you over there Viola!"_

Cyrus was here again, I could see him landing his VTOL on the east side of the island, and we ran to get our revenge…But something was wrong…Something didn't feel right as I struggled to catch my breath. Johnny ran ahead of me as he loaded up his AK and drew that same old grin on his face that he always had when he was going to kill someone important.

_"Blood in, blood out!"_

I laughed at what he was shouting back to me, and sprinted after him and Temple, but when I got there, it didn't make sense…Temple and Kia were standing by the VTOL, with Shaundi and Viola tied up on the ground, and Johnny was locked in a fistfight with both Loren and Killbane…The fuck was happening? This didn't make sense, we were Saints; we always win, right?

_"You criminals are all the same; you think you own the whole damn world and that nothing will ever stop you, but a bullet in the head will take you all down…"_

_"You thought…You could beat the Walking Apocalypse?"_

_"I won't let my friends die!"_

I ran towards the VTOL, and tried to help Gat up on his feet, but Killbane tackled me onto the ground, and Cyrus was shooting his laser rifle at me…I was dying. And it felt so rewarding; I was dying, for my friends. That was a change, me, dying for Gat, Shaundi and Viola. They were going to survive, and all it took was my sacrifice…But then shit got worst, Loren had stabbed Gat in the gut again, and repeatedly shot him onto the ground, and he became nothing more than just a large red stain on the grass.

_"Blood in…Blood out…"_

Killbane was punching me over and over in the face, and I finally found my knife in one of my jacket's pockets, and slashed both of his eyes, and forced the cold knife through the wrestler's thick brain…And pushed him away. But I was too late, Kia had her desert eagle aimed towards Shaundi and Viola…And shot them both in the head…One shot each.

_"This could have ended differently, you know? All I wanted was for you to pay for everything you had done! For every murder you've committed in your crazed mission for power!"_

_"I-I…I didn't want this…All I wanted was for you all to suffer the pain that you deserved…And for me to save my friends…"_

_"There not your friends kid…They were soldiers. They knew the risk, and they foolishly took it. For you. A worthless leader, and you get upset over the casualties of war. You really aren't cut out to be a leader, are you? The original Saints leader understand my point; he was a true leader, a true commander."_

_"Your wrong Temple! We reformed this gang to retake the streets! To fight for each other! To die for each other!"_

_"Then why can't you get over it? Why can't you move on?"_

_…_

_"How the fuck am I supposed to move on? That bastard over there was with me from the start of this gang! Those girls were the ones I recruited into the gang, and trained into the hardened bitches that nearly took you down! I-I can't move on…"_

_"You mean you don't want to?"_

_"I CAN'T! I FUCKING CAN'T!"_

_"Coward…"_

_"You old bastard! I FUCKING CAN'T MOVE ON!"_

* * *

_"Boss!"_

_"I-I can never…Move on; it's impossible now."_

_"Wake up! They're here!"_

_"Wo-Woah, what? Shit, must have nodded off…"_

_"Take your fucking pills for once…Now get up; the Saints are here."_

_"'Bout fucking time! Fuck yes!"_

Oleg helped me out of the truck as I eagerly straightened myself up and turned to see my friends, or what looked like my friends; I could barely recognise them as they were shadows of the very people that I once knew…

Angel stood there wearing a pale blue denim jacket with a black tank-top underneath, and had a couple of necklaces and dogtags across his neck, and a couple more tattoos as well across his body from what I could see. He had navy blue tracksuit running pants on with small light purple stripes, and sported a pair of dark brown sneakers to go with the outfit as well. He still wore his mask, thank fuck as that was the only way I could recognise the man as Angel De La Muerte, but he had a larger and more noticeable stubble, and his eyes were much darker than what they had used to be. I couldn't understand why Angel was wearing these clothes; he was a wrestler, he's supposed to be wearing like, a boxing outfit or a pair of special shorts, or just something that, aside from his mask, labelled him as a wrestler. I could not understand as to why he was hiding that.

Kinzie stood next to him, with her hair cleaner than usual and straightened, and she wore a new FBI jacket that was half buttoned, with a bright purple shirt underneath, and she had kept her fingerless gloves but had replaced the jeans with black pants and a pair of grey and white sneakers, with pale purple laces. She looked as though she had rejoined the FBI, as she looked like one of those federal agents; the only reason why I wasn't running for my life away from her was because it was Kinzie, it was still the same Kinzie that I could trust. But she looked so scared, so tired and like a fucking wreck. Like Zimos after waking up from one of his nights of binge drinking and finding out that he hadn't used a condom the night before and that his hoes were still in the bed with him. Her eyes were also bloodshot like Oleg's, and she wouldn't let go of her shotgun that looked like a specialised government shotgun.

Zimos looked crazier than usual; he had a leopard skin pimp hat with a white feather, and wore the same black pimp outfit but with white and yellow stripes and decals instead of the usual purple. He boots were also black, but with small white and yellow bubbles on the back of the heels, and for some strange reason, he wasn't carrying his cane. He had let his moustache grow out, and was now sporting a goatee, and his glasses were replaced by jet black ones with dark yellow outlines. He didn't look like a happy pimp, as there was no swag in the way he stood or walked, and just acted like an ordinary old man, aside from the dark pimpsuit that he wore, although he looked unwilling to wear it. It was as if he had lost the lust for wanting to get laid every forty minutes, as if he wasn't eager on becoming the biggest pimp of Steelport again, as if he was just a broken shell of the man he used to be.

Tag looked stranger than ever; he stood behind the rest of the crew with his hair still stuck upwards just like before I had travelled to the future, but he was now wearing a white suit jacket like Oleg's, and had replaced his old white suit underneath with a purple shirt, and wore a new pair of blue jeans that had actually fitted him, with big fucking black boots that almost looked like a tire off a Goddamn van. He was no longer wearing any glasses, and actually looked thinner than he had used to be, almost too thin. He looked as if he had been living in poverty for the entire five years, and guessing from the bruises and scars on his knuckles and face; I guess he has had the worst life of all of the remaining Saints, it shouldn't have been him as he had a lot to learn after we found him with that kid Jimmy's help. After spending about five minutes looking towards his face, I could finally see the resemblance between him and Gat, though, it was only a small resemblance now as Tag looks as though he has been to hell and back too many times.

Before I had a chance to look at the rest of the crew, Oleg helped me out of the car and began explaining to everyone what the plan was, but I began to feel dizzy, foam was coming out of my mouth and I could barely stand. The sight of all my friends again in this state must have been too much, either that, or something shit has happened to me. I started falling to the ground and Oleg tried helping me up, but I was out of it, and I struggled to breath.

* * *

The old leader of the Saints was dragged up the long stairs of the new Ultor Tower, and the Ultor soldiers snickered at listening to him moan in pain. They finally reached the top floor and one of the guards checked the leader and the two soldiers for any weapons, then opened the doors to the main room of the top floor, and the old Boss met one of the people he had hated for so long. But it wasn't just anybody that was sitting in front of him across a desk as she had filed away important paperwork; it was the President. President Monica Hughes. She stood and glared down at the dying leader who was struggling to live up to the very name of the man that had killed her husband, and had in essence, unwittingly helped the woman to build her own political career off her husband's memory.

_"You have been off the grid for five years, yet you have gotten sloppy and now, you've just allowed yourself to be arrested. What are you planning?"_

_"I..I ca-I can't…Br-eathe!"_

_"Hmm, I shouldn't expect an answer should I? The Boss of the notorious Third Street Saints, known culprit of multiple massacres across the globe; the inferno in Odessa, the nuclear explosion in Washington DC…I'm surprised you weren't actually involved in the nuke of Stilwater and Steelport five years ago…Or, at least, I'm surprised that it has not come out yet."_

_"Hu-Hughes…We wer-Were friends…I helped you out, you sly double crossing bitch!"_

_"I only accepted your help just so I can prove a point to the Ultor Corporation; that I will never back down. And now as President of the United States, and joint leader of Ultor, I order for your sentence of death…And I will personally watch you fry on the electric chair…Guards! Take him to level five, let him rot with the other war criminals!"_

The two guards standing in the President's office grabbed the boss from the ground, and carried him out of the room and began beating him whilst moving him down the stairs, as the sounds of the Boss crying in pain passed through the large doors of Hughes's office. The other door across the room opened, and a familiar face greeted Hughes after secretly listening to the conversation. He wore a dark charcoal suit with a pale orange tie on top of his black shirt, and he sported a black fedora on his head. Hughes noticed him coming in and gave a small false smile and the two politicians greeted each other.

_"Have you heard from the other leader of Ultor, Senator?"_

_"No Ma'am, our last conversation together was four hours ago, his last known location was in China, where he was opening one of our newest branches and recruiting for more employees."_

_"Hmm, very well. He'll likely be on a private plane then in the next hour; he'll be interested in who we have just arrested. I'm surprised you're acting so calm about his presence here Senator."_

_"It has been a long time since I worked for him, and a lot has changed our relationship, including the bloodbath in Florida. I want him to pay for his crimes as much as you do, Mrs President."_

_"I'm glad to hear it. You may as well stay here; he'll be here in a few hours' time. Take a seat, Senator Washington."_

* * *

_"Boss! Boss!"_

_"It's no use…Let me try…Boss! For Fuck's sake! Wake up!"_

_"Ok…I'm up."_

I managed to wake myself up and get back on my feet, with some help from Oleg and Angel, and looked at the woman who managed to wake me up, and then I fell back down to the ground in fright. I thought I was in another one of my nightmares again as Oleg began trying to explain what was happening, but no explanation would bring sense to what the fuck was happening. The woman stood with a grey leather coat that had a purple zip, and a black jumper underneath, and she wore black snakeskin pants, just like Shaundi had worn, and had dark purple heels on as well. She had a Saints symbol chain attached to her belt and wore solid black sunglasses, which sat on top of her long black hair that was tucked into a ponytail.

_"Does he-Does he know?"_

_"No…I have not had time to tell him everything."_

_"You should have told him Oleg, he's nearly had a heart attack…"_

_I couldn't believe how calm everyone was talking, and managed to get back up on my feet for the third time, and struggled to understand how Angel or Oleg weren't as shocked as I was at what I was seeing._

_"The fuck is wrong with you people? How is she alive?"_

_"It's a long story, Boss…We'll tell you on the way-"_

_"-No! I want answers now, before I start thinking this is another fucking nightmare! So how are you fucking alive!? How are you standing there, perfectly normal!?_

_I thought you died Viola…You were supposed to be on that statue…How are you muthafucking alive? Viola…"_


End file.
